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The Lauscha Journal We visited the Lauscha factory in the
eastern part of Germany late in September 2003 to take part in their
150th anniversary celebration. It was a unique opportunity to see
how glass rods are made. The process for making rods is a lot like
pulling taffy, and that's how they were made when the company started
150 years ago! I want to share these pictures of our visit. |
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click photo to enlarge
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The Furnaces of Lauscha: All of the glass is made in four gas fired furnaces, each with a batch size of about 120 kg ( 264 lbs), and the furnaces operate 24/7. |
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Once the materials in the batch are melted and ready, the rod making process begins with one man using a pipe to take a gather of molten glass from the furnace and shaping it into an upside down cone by rolling it on a steel surfaced table. |
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The gather is added to by return trips to the furnace. If you look at the end of a rod of opaque, you can count the number of trips that were made. |
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This process goes on until the desired amount is collected and shaped into a 'maxigather' of 15-20 lbs. |
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About the time the maxigather is being completed, the other man on the team builds a disc of the same hot glass on the end of another pipe. This disc will be joined to the wide part of the maxigather and they can start hand pulling the rod. The man in this picture is Andreas Moesel; most of the rods I have sold were pulled by Andreas. |
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One man stands still and the other slowly backs away with the maxigather; the diameter of the rod will depend on how rapidly and smoothly he backs up. |
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The rod being pulled appears to be red because it is hot; it is actually opaque yellow, and it will be pulled to about 60 feet long. |
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Once the rod is cooled, Andreas cuts them into one-meter lengths, and these are sorted by diameter and shipped in 10 kg bundles. |
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Andreas and I spoke very little of each other's language, but I plan to thank him "Auf Deutsch" next time I see him. |
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