Hot Trip to Homer Laughlin

As Tony Cavalier is fond of saying, today was hazy, hot and humid. We started our day with a trip to The Museum of Ceramics in East Liverpool, Ohio. What we found was the history of ceramics in northern West Virginia, primarily Homer Laughlin and its subsidiaries.

Until modern times, pottery and ceramics were hand spun on a wheel as Chris is demonstrating here.

This is an original and complete set of Homer Laughlin Fiesta Dinnerware.

A display in the museum of a family throwing clay and creating china.

A reenactment of a sagger carrying china on his head to the kiln.

Betsy Chetwynd of the Ceramics Museum giving us the history of the pieces on display.

A display of ceramic mugs from a barber shop. Barber shops were the center of a town's life through the mid-Twentieth Century. Regular customers often had their own personalized  shaving mugs. 

After the museum we took a trip to Homer Laughlin, home of Fiesta Dinnerware. While there we toured the factory and saw how china is made. A video is linked here that shows the process in the 1930's. While it is more modernized and mechanized today, the process remains the same.

Questions:
1. Jiggers and others in ceramics manufacturing worked piecework. What do you think piecework means?
2. The picture above shows an entire family working to make china. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of using an entire family?
3. Look around your house and talk to you guardians. Ask them where they use china and if they have any Fiesta Dinnerware.

Marble King

Marble King, also located in Paden City,  was the second stop of the day and proved to be a lot of fun. We learned about the process of making marbles (unfortunately their operation was down) and got to learn about how Marble King has adapted and changed in its more than 100 history.

The oven that Mable King uses to make its marbles. It was engineered by students from WVU.

While this is a picture of Wismach, they send the cullet from their factory to Marble King.

A barrel of black marbles.

Beri Fox, President of Marble King discussing how they are using marbles today and how they are keeping the age old game of shooting marbles alive.

A recent news article about the annual marble shooting competition sponsored by Marble King in New Jersey.

Paul Wissmach Glass

We started day two at Paul Wissmach Glass in Paden City, West Virginia. Wissmach makes colored glass sheets for artists to use in stained glass and other application.

Carry boys use trolleys to scoop ladles of molten glass. Two ladles are used in each pour. Each ladle comes out of a different comes from a different batch of glass.

The molten glass is mixed together into one molten mass.

The molten glass then goes through rollers, much like a pasta machine, and then is formed into a sheet of glass floating on the table.

Molten glass on the table being rolled out.

Within seconds a worker runs a metal knife under the glass to separate it from the table and pushes it into the annealing oven.

Cooled sheets of stained glass exiting the annealing oven and ready to be cut.

Part of Wissmach's inventory of glass. They have over 5000 colors in their inventory.

Questions:
 1. The chemistry of glass making is the same, but the process is different from what we have studied before with blowing glass. Compare and contrast Wissmach and Fenton.
2. What are some places you have seen stained glass before?
3. What are some other uses you can imagine for stained glass?

Oglebay Glass Museum

We finished off day one with a trip to Oglebay Glass Museum. The museum was opened in 1993 and its gift shop was filled with West Virginia only glass pieces. Today, due to the loss of glass factories in West Virginia, that is not the case. The accompanying museum is now filled only with works created in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Holly McCluskey, Curator of Glass, gives us the history of the five foot tall glass vase or "punch bowl" as it is known. There were three of them made as traveling display pieces with one of them being given to the Great Orator Henry Clay. This is the last surviving vase. 

A picture of workers at a glass factory.

  Questions:
1. We see in two pictures here that glass had significance beyond display pieces. Explain how it was used and give any other examples you can think of where glassware might have more significance.
2. Why would a glass producer make a vase that is five feet tall?
3. Are there special considerations in making a vase that large?

Fenton Art Glass

After leaving Gabbert, we headed to Fenton Art Glass to watch the skilled artisans decorate glass.  Fenton no longer produces glass, instead putting painted finishes on the stock they have left and making jewelry and beads from glass stock.

Fenton is located in Williamstown, West Virginia

Artisans meticulously painting glassware.

An artisan examining her work to see what she needs to add to finish the piece.

Fenton's historian discussing the history of Fenton and the chemistry behind glass.

The chemistry of glass

Figurines for sell at Fenton.

Questions:
 1. What are the pros and cons of each piece of glass being hand painted by an artisan?
2. What do you think this means economically?
3. Do you believe a hand crafted piece of art glass is more valuable than a similar piece that is mass produced?

Gabbert Cullett or Bust

We are officially on the trip and learning! We left out this morning at 8:30 and were in Williamstown, WV by 10:30. The weather was dry and hot, but the vans are air conditioned, so no problem.

Our first stop was Gabbert Cullet in Williamstown. Gabbert buys and sells cullet to and from glass suppliers and glass manufacturers.  

The cullet comes in mixed and must be sorted into bins.

The blue cullet here was obviously a fiasco.

Dennis greets the owner of Gabbert, Mr. Frank Lane. Mr. Lane spoke to us about the history of Gabbert.

Broken handles and end pieces from the glass making process.

Questions for consideration:
1. Review the previous posts and define cullet.
2. Mr. Lane's business has been in decline for years because of the number of glass manufacturers that are no longer in business. Why have those businesses been closing?
3. What are some other uses of cullet? Look around your house and neighborhood if you can't think of any.

Blenko's Bountiful Blessings

The Ceramics and Glass Class was blessed with a visit to Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia on June 6. Blenko was started by William Blenko in 1893 and moved to Milton in 1921. They hand craft glassware using age-old methods of hand-gathering glass and blowing the molten glass into molds. The only machine they use to make the glass is the ultimate machine, the human body!

Molten Glass inside a oven ready for glass making.

Jason getting his glass ready to blow into a candy dish.

A candy dish being formed by hand by a Blenko artisan.

The molds that glass is blown into are similar to these. They are either

 made from wood or steel.

Glass cullet ready to be reused in new glass.

Wes is placing his water vase in the annealer. Over a period of about four hours the glass will cool.

The chemistry behind the glass making process was discussed in my Glass Making Chemistry blog entry. Over the course of the day each of our teachers made two water vases and a candy dish. We experienced first hand what is involved in making glass. While we did technically make glass, we couldn't have made anything you would recognize without the help of Blenko's artisans. I'm not sure we could have even created a fiasco without their assistance in fixing our mistakes!

The two water vases that I made at Blenko!

Questions for consideration:
1. Why is it that cullet is used in  glass making?
2. What would be the advantages of using steel over wood molds?
3. How could you overcome those disadvantages?
4. How long does it take to become a skilled glass blower?