braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 23, 2019 14:41:45 GMT -5
With my recent success at tumbling glass I put out the word I was accepting colored glass donations from family and friends and I'm almost regretting doing that as I got enough to do me years already and there's more coming! Not complaining and a good problem to have for sure. This morning my 80 yr old neighbor gave me the 11 1/2 lb chunk of "black" glass in the photo. He used to work in a glass place (as he called it) way back and he thinks it came from the "furnace" there. I got it on condition I only take a piece and tumble it and we will go from there. I think it's more of a dark yellow as that color shows on the edges with the light shining through? I'm going to cut off a corner and that will be a priority tumble in the glass queue...real curious to see how it turns out! Glass from Ken by Glen Braaten, on Flickr
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 23, 2019 16:42:14 GMT -5
Cool, looking forward to see how it turns out for you. Should be nice. I live in a town of old glass factories. In fact have one right next to me and find lots of glass chunks.
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Post by fernwood on Dec 23, 2019 23:36:00 GMT -5
You have a great neighbor. When I was a child, a cousin received some type of cow medicine in black glass bottles with cork stoppers. When I was in High School experimenting using crushed bottles for ceramic glaze, he gave me a cracked bottle. When crushed, the black bottle was more dark amber, similar to your photo.
Looking forward to see how yours tumbles.
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 24, 2019 1:36:39 GMT -5
I didn't want to ruin the natural fractured look for my neighbor by sawing off a piece so two whacks with a hammer and this piece came off which worked out pretty good...the big chunk looks pretty much the same as before, just a little smaller. I did some tile saw cutting/preforming so now I'm ready for free rotary space. I know zilch about glass and was wondering if the dark/black color might be caused by impurities and negatively affect the tumble but the fractured surfaces look shiny so maybe not an issue? Anyways...like you guys I'm hoping to see a nice result (and impress my neighbor so he'll give me the rest of it) Good thing glass rough tumbles fairly fast or I might have to dump something out... IMG_5059 by Glen Braaten, on Flickr IMG_5062 by Glen Braaten, on Flickr
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Dec 24, 2019 5:49:36 GMT -5
That glass should tumble well Glen. It breaks clean and appears to not have many bubbles. Nice fragment you knocked off for tumbling. That is not so easy to do. Most black glass is dark brown/yellow or purple in reality. Most of it is dense and hard, color is likely due to iron. Black obsidian is the blackest glass I know of but most of it gets it's color from tiny grey colored particles.
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 24, 2019 8:04:12 GMT -5
This makes me want to cut up the big chunks of glass we’ve had in the rock garden for the past 45 years. Hmmm.....
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 24, 2019 13:00:37 GMT -5
This makes me want to cut up the big chunks of glass we’ve had in the rock garden for the past 45 years. Hmmm..... I'm jealous with all the glass you got in your area so get going! One of my favorite quotes is from my hockey hero Wayne Gretzky "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" So true...
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 24, 2019 14:45:13 GMT -5
This makes me want to cut up the big chunks of glass we’ve had in the rock garden for the past 45 years. Hmmm..... I'm jealous with all the glass you got in your area so get going! One of my favorite quotes is from my hockey hero Wayne Gretzky "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" So true... Yea, those ones in the rock garden are kind of sacred. They’ve been passed down from my grandparents, to my mom and now to me, but it’s really tempting. We’ll see what happens when I get my tile saw and if I can keep it busy enough with other stuff. Plus there’s always the little chunks I find from the area to play with.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Dec 25, 2019 8:30:37 GMT -5
My grandparents lived in Erie PA. Their gravel roads were paved in crushed slag glass gravel likely from smelting operations in the Pittsburgh steel district. As visiting kid form the south I found that amazing. There is a 'Strategic Materials Inc.' glass processing satellite plant about 10 miles away from the house. They may have an operation near you. They crush mostly bottles and separate by color in giant piles. They often receive chunk glass from the local Owens Corning fiberglass insulation plant when they hire large equipment to jackhammer the glass out of the giant kilns. They used to give it away because it was difficult to break it into small meltable sizes. Over the years the landscapers now pay well for it. interesting glass operation. americanspecialtyglass.com/wp-content/LandscapeColorChart.pdfamericanspecialtyglass.com/terrazzo-glass/Looking at their fire pit glass I found this new product available in small packages/many colors
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 25, 2019 13:57:13 GMT -5
I'm jealous with all the glass you got in your area so get going! One of my favorite quotes is from my hockey hero Wayne Gretzky "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" So true... Yea, those ones in the rock garden are kind of sacred. They’ve been passed down from my grandparents, to my mom and now to me, but it’s really tempting. We’ll see what happens when I get my tile saw and if I can keep it busy enough with other stuff. Plus there’s always the little chunks I find from the area to play with. Reminds me of this guy I got when my parents passed away years ago...none of us kids even knew they had it but being the oldest I claimed it. I have it strategically placed in my house so I'm always enjoying it (again) as I walk buy. A while back on RTH I saw one similar destined for the tile saw ( jamesp ?) and wondered if I could do that and quickly concluded no way! You're right some things are sacred... IMG_5067 by Glen Braaten, on Flickr
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braat
spending too much on rocks
Member since December 2016
Posts: 350
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Post by braat on Dec 25, 2019 14:14:47 GMT -5
My grandparents lived in Erie PA. Their gravel roads were paved in crushed slag glass gravel likely from smelting operations in the Pittsburgh steel district. As visiting kid form the south I found that amazing. There is a 'Strategic Materials Inc.' glass processing satellite plant about 10 miles away from the house. They may have an operation near you. They crush mostly bottles and separate by color in giant piles. They often receive chunk glass from the local Owens Corning fiberglass insulation plant when they hire large equipment to jackhammer the glass out of the giant kilns. They used to give it away because it was difficult to break it into small meltable sizes. Over the years the landscapers now pay well for it. interesting glass operation. americanspecialtyglass.com/wp-content/LandscapeColorChart.pdfamericanspecialtyglass.com/terrazzo-glass/Looking at their fire pit glass I found this new product available in small packages/many colors Your post reminded me of a local historic pottery here in town...I'm going to check it out and see if they did any glass along the way... medalta.org/
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 25, 2019 16:18:35 GMT -5
My grandparents lived in Erie PA. Their gravel roads were paved in crushed slag glass gravel likely from smelting operations in the Pittsburgh steel district. As visiting kid form the south I found that amazing. There is a 'Strategic Materials Inc.' glass processing satellite plant about 10 miles away from the house. They may have an operation near you. They crush mostly bottles and separate by color in giant piles. They often receive chunk glass from the local Owens Corning fiberglass insulation plant when they hire large equipment to jackhammer the glass out of the giant kilns. They used to give it away because it was difficult to break it into small meltable sizes. Over the years the landscapers now pay well for it. interesting glass operation. americanspecialtyglass.com/wp-content/LandscapeColorChart.pdfamericanspecialtyglass.com/terrazzo-glass/Looking at their fire pit glass I found this new product available in small packages/many colors Owens was next to me for most of my life and then it became Anchor Hocking and now the whole thing is subdivided into many smaller businesses. That factory goes all the way back to the early 1900’s. I was sad when they tore down the huge furnace.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Dec 25, 2019 19:41:05 GMT -5
From brick to pottery kilns Georgia has them all braat. Our exotic clays have long supplied brick makers, potters, high tech ceramics etc. Georgia Institute of Technology has one of the most renown ceramic engineering schools in the world. Love those old buildings. Good to see them being protected, would be a shame to take them down.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Dec 25, 2019 19:51:33 GMT -5
My grandparents lived in Erie PA. Their gravel roads were paved in crushed slag glass gravel likely from smelting operations in the Pittsburgh steel district. As visiting kid form the south I found that amazing. There is a 'Strategic Materials Inc.' glass processing satellite plant about 10 miles away from the house. They may have an operation near you. They crush mostly bottles and separate by color in giant piles. They often receive chunk glass from the local Owens Corning fiberglass insulation plant when they hire large equipment to jackhammer the glass out of the giant kilns. They used to give it away because it was difficult to break it into small meltable sizes. Over the years the landscapers now pay well for it. interesting glass operation. americanspecialtyglass.com/wp-content/LandscapeColorChart.pdfamericanspecialtyglass.com/terrazzo-glass/Looking at their fire pit glass I found this new product available in small packages/many colors Owens was next to me for most of my life and then it became Anchor Hocking and now the whole thing is subdivided into many smaller businesses. That factory goes all the way back to the early 1900’s. I was sad when they tore down the huge furnace. Curious if Owens was making fiberglass insulation there RocksInNJ ? This Owens is still in operation. Must be at least 60 years. The local train carries in glass balls by the carload. They litter the train tracks. About the size of ping pong balls, apparently the size for melting homogeneously for extruding into glass fibers for insulation. About every 6 months the bottom of the large furnaces collect about a 3 foot deep pool of glass that must be removed. They let it cool and hire large track loaders with jack hammers to break it in to pieces and haul it off.
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Post by RocksInNJ on Dec 25, 2019 23:04:59 GMT -5
Owens was next to me for most of my life and then it became Anchor Hocking and now the whole thing is subdivided into many smaller businesses. That factory goes all the way back to the early 1900’s. I was sad when they tore down the huge furnace. Curious if Owens was making fiberglass insulation there RocksInNJ ? This Owens is still in operation. Must be at least 60 years. The local train carries in glass balls by the carload. They litter the train tracks. About the size of ping pong balls, apparently the size for melting homogeneously for extruding into glass fibers for insulation. About every 6 months the bottom of the large furnaces collect about a 3 foot deep pool of glass that must be removed. They let it cool and hire large track loaders with jack hammers to break it in to pieces and haul it off. They may have, but as far as I know they just did glass. They too had trains haul stuff in, in the earlier years. Tracks are still there. There’s a lot of old medicine bottles and such from the early 1900’s buried in pits back in the woods. My grandfather and I used to dig for them and had a nice collection at one point.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Dec 28, 2019 10:39:54 GMT -5
This guy sells slag at a tourist stop in the Appalachian mountains. $13 per pound all day long.
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