GLASS CANDLE HOLDERS

Lead Glass candleholders has a longer working range and is therefore more versatile than other glass. Although the comparison of lead glass can vary widely there are three main types of lead glass candle holders.

The highest quality with at least 30 percent lead, which even today is made into articles entirely by hand; lower quality with about 24 percent of lead; and the cheapest with about 10 percent of lead. The latter two can be produced by hand or by machine.

Normally lead glass candleholders are melted in pots holding between 500 and 750 kg of glass. The pot is of the closed type design, which means that the glasses dose not come into contact with combustion gases in the furnace. This is important since combustion gases often have reducing properties, which could reduce the lead component into black, metallic lead. However, in recent years, for large volume production, tank furnaces are also being used and the chemical reduction is prevented by ensuring that only oxidizing flame come into contact with the glass, or by using electricity for melting.

The glass candle holders makers producing stemmed glasses work in a team of four. The first man is the blower and it is his job to produce the bowl. He pre heats the end of a long blowing iron, dips it into the surface of molten glass and by rotating it in the glass gather just enough to produce the bowl. To accomplish this, simply by judgment, requires a very high degree of training and skill. He then blows a bubble and afterwards shapes the glass by rolling it, still held at the end of blowing iron, on a metal plate called a marver. This process is equivalent to that of making a parison for bottle blowing but it is done by hand without the help of mould. Two halves of blow moulds with a cavity in the shape of the final bowl are closed around the parison. The blower then blows his parison to its final shape, while continuously rotating the blowing iron.

If we examine an ordinary bottle we shall discover vertical seams on either side. These seams are where the two halves of a hinged mould came together. A two-piece hinged mould is also used foe making a glass candle holders but not seams are to be found anywhere. How is this then achieved? The answer is very simple: the mould is kept wet with water and the heat of the mould produces steam which forms a cushion on which the glass candle holders is rotated during blowing.

The blowing iron, with the bowl still attached, is then passed to the headman of the team, called the servitor, whose job is to add the stem and foot to the bowl. The third man in the team, known as the big gatherer, gathers a small amount of glass from the pot and takes it to the servitor, who with primitive tools and sophisticated skill shapes the stem. Having completed the steam, he receives another piece of molten glass from the bit gatherer and makes the foot.

The foot if flared out buy rolling the iron pipe with the bowl, the stem and the glass candle holders for the foot at the end of it on the arm of glassmaker's chair and shaping it with a flat piece of wet wood. The completed article is then broken off from the blowing iron and taken by the fourth man to the annealing lehr to be annealed and finished off afterwards. The articles can then be hand decorated by cutting or engraving. Jugs, fruit bowl and vases are also made by hand like these glass candle holders.