Smyrna times., 1908-06-03
WORKING WITH GLASS
The Way the Different Color e.
teCtS Are Produced.
FREAKS OF THE BLoWPIPE.

II d stranger enters the glass works |
on dark night he will find not only |
beauty i'll the blowing operations. but |
great deal Of humOr. with an uncan-
ny Weirdness in flame and shadow that |
must affect his imagination to some |
extent. The building is circular with |
a chimney sticking up through the mid |
die of 1t, from the top of which pc |
culiar intermittent light is Pickering |
In the center of this building. under |
meath the chimney. stands a conical |
furnace of brick containing perhaps no
fewer than eight holes which are like
hercely glaripg suns and from which
pour expanding broad rays of orange
colOred light. If your eyes are strong
enough to look through the holes from
which the orange beams of light
emerge you see several hundredweight
OF molten metal shining silvery green
In as many ear.len dome shaped melt
ing pots.
The nature of different kinds of glass
Is dependent upon the quality of the
raw material, called batch" put into
the melting pots. Batch" is a mixture
of such materials as Calais sand, or
common river sand abounding in silica,
salt cake, or sodium carbonate and
much lime. Blue cOlOrs may be OBJ
tained by adding oxide Of cobalt green
by means of a chrome, black by man
ganese and amber. The mass of molten
metal got from this Opaque, earthly
looking "batch" has frequently to be
skinned of impurities, but it is never
thelesS a problem whence comes that
wonderful and enduring transparency
which everybody likes to see in glass.
Until the hour strikes for the work
men to commence operations you may
find them experimenting for amuse-
ment or profit with the blowpipe. You
will see many an enOrmity produced in
glass the like of which can scarcely
ever have been dropped from a puntil
before. Specimens are blown out to
the thinness of a tissue paper bag,
which another puff of wind eXplOdes
with a crack, or glowing glass pear
is for very wantOnness knocked off the
puntil so that it may vanish with a re-
ing extinguished Immediately. The floor
all around the furnace chamber is COW
cred with brittle shining splinters and
particles of glass, which crackle under
foot at every step. One of the men
may bring you a mass of metal on a
blowpipe and ask you to expend few
,cheekfuls of wind upon it. The pipe
takes no more blowing than from
bone, though it lacks a mouthpiece,
and you may expand the bubble until
it is black and cold, so fragile that it
will break into a myriad pieces if
you touch it. The molten glass is so
ductile that it may be spun out into a
thread. and the men often vie with
each other to see who can make the
longest and thinnest strand.
at the signal to commence work the
men, already partly stripped to the
waist, poke their four foot blowpipe
through the hole of the crucible OppO-
site to which they work, twisting il
round until it has taken up sufficient of
the ropy and viscid glass for one bot
tie. The man who Is clever at his work
will, of course, gather up neither toe
much nor too little for the thickness OF
the bottle required. He can tell with
out looking through the furnace holes
when he has enough by the weight
added to his pipe. Thus all around the
fiery furnace there are figures moving
continually across the luril . ght. mos
Of them dexterously welding thei
blOwpipes and balancing at the end O
each one the exact quantity of vitrifieC
matter to make a bottle. The amateur
would find it difficult to balance tht
molten mass. The chances are that
would drop on the floor, never to b
picked up again.
At the same moment you will see bot
fIes in all stages of growth-sOme gilt
tering gold. others cooling down t
orange or red some in the forms o
plummets or dazzling pears, others a
fncandescent bosses threatening to be
come fragile bladders. 1t is all a
charming as a pyrotechnic display. Yo
will see the black blowpipe twirle
round. blown down, held up like gu
barrel then in the form of an incaI
descent lamp globe turned round on
beeswaxed cast iron implement "alle
a marler. on whose edge the bottl
neck is formed 1t is held up ono
more. blown into. then shut up in
cast iron mold placed at the operator
feet somewhat below the level of II
ground This mold is opened and close
by a wire spring, which the oper
tor presses with his feet. and direct
the red hot bottle is inclosed he blow
down the pipe once more so as to fill
completely.
A man goes round from mold to mo
Inserting a rod into the neck OF ea'
bottle and collecting trayful to go
the annesling chamber. Here the DC
ties are stacked up for gradual Coz
ing process, which may possibly la
thirty-six hours. This gives them u
desired strength. The annealing pre-
ess is a cure for their natural fragili
and enables them to stand the test