Origins of Glue Chip Glass

[Tom Temple]

I'm trying to track down the origins of glue chip glass as commonly used on glass signs and windows. I know it became quite popular in the early 1900's but think it was originally developed prior to this time.

Does anyone have any information regarding its origins or who developed it first?

Thanks
Tom T

[Tom Temple]

Thanks Mike.

I had found the handlettering page with the various glue chip tutorials but missed the Rawson & Evans page. I tried the US Patent office to search the patent and see if there were any references to earlier patents but I just kept getting hung up (hourglass) when I submitted the query. Maybe they have a lot of traffic or just a slow system. I'll try again later.

Do you think Rawson & Evans were the first to use glue chip techniques on glass?

Regards
Tom T :

[Mike Jackson]

Tom,
Just in case you have found "the parent page" of this site, check out all the goodies on this site:

http://www.theletterheads.com

The Hand Lettering Forum is just part of the web site we affectionately call "The Original Letterheads Web Site". Some people call it "the green site".

There is an entire section dedicated to Glue Chipping:
http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/gluechip.html

And, there is a beautiful section dedicated to Rawson & Evans. They were doing decorative glue-chipped glass signs in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/rawsonevans.html

If you are looking for information on Glue-Chipped glass, I believe you have now found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Mike Jackson - co-host

[Mike Jackson]

Tom,
I don't know how long people had been glue-chipping glass prior to Rawson and Evans. I don't think they invented the proecess, but the patents indicate they invented technology and progressed the process.

I am always "interested" in historical information like this, but it doesn't "drive" me as it might some. I just want to "do it". If I were the set designer for a movie, I'd probably want to make sure the process being specified for a set would have actually been around during the movie time frame. Back in the '50s and '60s, they could probably have gotten away with more than now.

Chipping large sheets of glass had probably been around for quite a while when Rawson and Evans began, but their direction was to figure out how to protect areas for decorative design and lettering. They had competition from Western Sandblast, but I don't know when they started either.

Mike

[David Harding]

I have always wondered how many of these things started out as "happy accidents".

Wife: "Look what you've done to my nice table!"
Husband: "Cool! I wonder if I can reproduce that?"

[Tom Temple]

HI Mike/David,

I agree that it was likely around prior to the 1891 patent. I also suspect that the original piece was created via David's method (happy accident). I found one reference to glue chip in the cathedral at Seton Hall University which was built in 1858 but it was a passing comment only.

I've hit a lot of "Glass History", "Stained Glass History" sites but no real information on glue chip. I would search the origins of hide glue, but I think it goes back several thousand years.

Any more ideas?

Thanks to both

TT

[Mike Jackson]

David,
I could probably envision someone accidentally dropping some hide glue on some glass at a factory, long ago, but for the process to have really worked the glass would have had to been frosted. If not frosted, it would have simply peeled up. So, two odd variables would have had to combined to get the "happy accident". Additionally, there are numerous gram strengths of glue. If it were too weak, nothing would have happened and if it were too strong, it could have broken the glass.

That's a lot of happy accidenting! Obviously, I have thought about it a bit over the years, but I haven't seen any real stories or documentation on the process' origins. I don't know if chipped glass panels have been found in very old cathederal stained glass?

Mike Jackson

[Guest]

The CLUE might be found via HISTORY to producing of "pane glass"
As I belive Blown Glass was done in EUROPE before "chipping"
as a decoration was started!
Might have even been TIFFINY

[Tom Temple]

I've ran a lot of searches for "glue chip history", "glue chip origins", "stained glass history", "glass history", "glass origins" and most recently "pane glass history" and "pane glass origins".

Pretty much hit the same sites. Lots of history of glass and stained glass, but plain old 1930's bathroom door glass.....nada.

The 1890's patents are the closest thing to facts so far.

Regards,
Tom T

[Tom Temple]

Are there any more ideas of when glue chip glass processing may have started?

Thanks
Tom T

[Mike Jackson]

Tom,
Maybe you should "start" your search on this topic at the introduction of "commercial glass".

http://gom.mse.iastate.edu/Complete/Non ... istory.htm

Here are a couple of lines from that site:
1800 - Industrial revolution dawns a new era in glass manufacturing. "Synthetic" chemicals for glass making are available for the first time. Synthetic glasses with improved properties become available.

1863 - sovay process dramatically reduces cost of a main ingredient in glass, sodium oxide.

1867 - Siemens brothers, Freiderich, Karl, Hans, Werner and Wilhelm patent and develop first regenerative glass furnace in Dresden, Germany

1875 - Technical glasses are developed in Germany, Abbe, Schott, and Carl Zeiss. University of Jena, Jena, Germany becomes a major glass science and engineering center. Glass chemistry is in its infancy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rawson and Evans was dealing with it in the 1875 period. Sounds like you are on the quest for knowledge...so let us know what you find out. I am content to know it has been around for 130 years or longer.

Mike Jackson

[Tom Temple]

Mike!

Thanks for the reply. I'll follow up on the links you provided. Odd as it seems, yes, I'm on a quest. I've gotten sort of sucked into searching out the origins of things related to what I'm working on. I just traced down a process for "re-consolidating" flaking paint on old reverse painted glass to a German process developed by Max Von Pettenkofen in 1867.

I guess it might be odd, but it helps to know how some of the modern processes evolved to what they are.

I'll let you know what I dig up.

Thanks again
Tom T

[Mike Jackson]

Tom,
Rick Glawson had that kind of curiosity...had to find out how and why along with when. I have a little of that in me, but not to that extent.

There might be a few variables to consider. I know animal hide glue has been around a long time and the page I linked to earlier indicates various forms of glass has been around a long time. The really old glass might have had enough natural texture to allow the glue to grip and chip without any sandblasting. With that, the origins could be VERY old. Taking that a step farther, if the process worked on early glass, but didn't when they started using the newer "commercial" glass in the mid-1800's, all it might have taken was to figure out how to texture the glass to continue chipping glass.

Let us know what you find out!

Mike

[Kent Smith]

I have accidently chipped glass without etching, so that indeed could be a possiblility. I also experimented with old glass, just mask and add glue wherein I got a great snail chip. There are references to flash chipping in pub glass from the 1700's but I don't recall the name of the texts I have read it in. Some of the early stained glass work in European cathedrals have small pieces of chipped clear glass as light accents. It is my impression that chipping dates as early as any sheet glass. They were blowing tubes and splitting them to lay-out as sheet in England in the early 1600's. Rick had that great PPG book that had quite a history of glass but I did not memorize it all, nor did I photocopy enough of it.

[Tom Temple]

Thanks for the information Ken. I'll try to follow up on some of the Flash chipping references.

By the way, my references indicate that cylinder glass came into being around 1825 when it replaced the crown glass process. Do you have any references to making cylinder glass in England at an earlier time?

Thanks again,
Tom T

[Kent Smith]

Jamestown colony was doing small pieces about 6"x8" in about 1635. This process was done by small glass blowers but not in production factories until the 1800's, as you say. It was very uneven but let light in well, you could see through it some and they were glazed together with mullions between to make a sizable window. Examples are at the Jamestown restoration.

[Tom Temple]

Thanks Kent,

I appreciate any data I can get my hands on.

I had read that the original Jamestown glass works was established in 1610 but lasted only a year. A second effort lasted only a little longer. The first ongoing glass making enterprise was (I think) by Casper Wistar in Salem County, New Jersey in 1739.

I was under the impression that the Jamestown glass was the crown glass variety where a "lump" of glass was spun rapidly to create a large round sheet with a crown in the middle where the pipe had been attached. The flat areas outside the "lump" were cut away to produce small square or diamond shaped panes that were then bound by one means or another to produce windows.

I thought that the cylinder glass process was considered something of a revolution when it was introduced since larger panes could be produced than with the crown process.

Thanks for the leads, I'll check out the Jamestown colony to see what I can find.

Still trying to set a date for the origin of glue-chip. If you turn up anything please pass it along.

Regards
Tom T

[Kent Smith]

Jamestown did make crown glass but they were experimenting with cutting apart bottle glass, allowing it to lie down. This was before using a tin bath to lay sheet on so hence the mottled lack of clarity. As you say, crown glass is spun out using a "capped" blow pipe, to form circular sheet. Bottles and similar shapes are rolled and blown out using an open pipe. This info is from my American history studies, not glass history so the sources may have interpreted stories about the production, rather than accurate accounts of the production process. The glassblowers of Jamestown were in and out of the business pretty much from its founding until the late 1700's and then resrufaced in the late 1800's. Their decendents were demonstrating the crafts the last time we visited the restored village. New Jersey and Penn. were the home to many glass fabricators and factories. My wife's greatgrandfather made glass molds in Phila. so we have some of the history about their customers but it appears that some of that is mere legend. I know that PPG, Libbey and Corning have a vast amount of historical information but I don't know how it is archived. Much of the early PPG stuff is in a Smithsonian warehouse someplace.

[Sarah King]

Western Sand Blast Manufacturing was founded in 1876 - according to Sharon Darling, Chicago Ceramics and Glass. Sometime in the 1990s R.J. Pyne, who had inherited the business from his father, died. It was bought by a couple of guys but, according to Pat Drehobl (third generation stained glass) they did not know what they were doing and the company went out of business two years later.

Thought I'd mention this, since Mike was wondering.

[Tom Temple]

Thanks Sarah / Ken

I found the Corning site. They had a pretty good history pdf file, but nothing specific about glue chip.

I downloaded the Rawson & Evans patent last night, but it must have been filed before any requirement to list "prior art". There are no references to previous glue chip activities.

I guess another approach would be to find examples of glue chip glass in pre-1890 pieces suchs as windows or signs. Has anyone came across a sign or window with glue chip that they could date prior to 1890?

Thanks for the history.

Regards
Tom T