WarmGlass.com

Was just reading "making glass beads" by Cindy Jenkins and found this picture of a pattern bar from Rome in 100 BC.... WOW how hard would that be to make without a kiln controller?????
karen teemer
http://www.teemer.com/bar

Pretty amazing isn't it? That's from Corning's collection. Roman, 1st c BC to 1st c AD. Mosaic glass technique, feather or scale pattern bar. Brock

that old glass just blows me away. i have been melting glass almost all my life. well, i started as soon as i was allowed access to fire at around age 8. anyhow thinking of all the bonfires and bottles melted and covered in ashes to try and get an unbroken piece. then to think they had to start from sand....... i wonder if it was that lightning glass that sparked the first ' i wonder?'. was talking to a native cheeser about lightning glass they used to get from jockeys ridge as kids. boy would i love to find a hunk of that. rosanna

kazindc wrote:Was just reading "making glass beads" by Cindy Jenkins and found this picture of a pattern bar from Rome in 100 BC.... WOW how hard would that be to make without a kiln controller?????
karen teemer
http://www.teemer.com/bar

Well, Karen,
Just ask Brock. He fused for a zillion years before he finally broke down, bought a controller, and learned how to use it.

judith

The "kiln" control is only one part of the virtuosity. That is "only" a matter of having a big enough brick pile to make cooling take place over several days.

Imagine managing to get a variety of compatible colors without having any concept of COE, etc. I'm sure they had a good grasp of the notion of compatability, but do you achieve it via mixing, magic, or just dumb luck? I've been wondering if there are some dumps of cracked glass canes, etc. which archeologists can't understand the significance of because they haven't fused.

Now once you have the pattern bar, the next challange is how to cut the sucker up. No diamond wet saws in the days of the Romans. I would imagine they used some type of Armstrong saw and grit with water. Sounds like a good job for an apprentice.

Ron

Brock wrote:Pretty amazing isn't it? That's from Corning's collection. Roman, 1st c BC to 1st c AD. Mosaic glass technique, feather or scale pattern bar. Brock

What is really amazing to me is that I understand that they can't exactly tell how it was made. With all of today's technology available to Corning, to have a piece of glass that old and a mystery is pretty cool. The mysterious part is how the various impurities in their raw materials did their thing to get the colors.

Bert Weiss wrote:

Brock wrote:Pretty amazing isn't it? That's from Corning's collection. Roman, 1st c BC to 1st c AD. Mosaic glass technique, feather or scale pattern bar. Brock

What is really amazing to me is that I understand that they can't exactly tell how it was made. With all of today's technology available to Corning, to have a piece of glass that old and a mystery is pretty cool. The mysterious part is how the various impurities in their raw materials did their thing to get the colors.

I think they think they know, but I'm not sure if I'm sure about that. Brock

Ron wrote

Sounds like a good job for an apprentice.

Better yet... a slave.

Rob

kazindc wrote:Was just reading "making glass beads" by Cindy Jenkins and found this picture of a pattern bar from Rome in 100 BC.... WOW how hard would that be to make without a kiln controller?????
karen teemer
http://www.teemer.com/bar

Here is a link that might help to explain how some of this "BC" stuff was made.

http://www.cmog.org/page.cfm?/page=277

Then do a search on

Mystery Slab

Jim

too cool, whooda thunkit! rosanna