Slag glass

I was reading through one of my new stained glass books and it mentions that an old church window in a picture and says it's made of slag glass. What's that?

Thanks, Michael

Reply to
Michael
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Slag is the residue at the bottom of the glass furnace. Also antique dealers refer to opal glass as slag, IE slag glass lamps.

Vic

Reply to
Vic

Reply to
michele

you can find chunks of slag along the road in NC at gem and mineral shops, it's the left overs from batches.

************** Thank you, Michele and Vic. I think that in the context it was the antique dealers equating opal with slag. This was a beautiful church window they were referring to. It didn't look like it was made out of chunks from the bottom of the furnace.

Speaking of other than the normal sheet of glass, when I toured Kokomo they showed some colorful and odd-shaped and thickness pieces that I think they called "head" glass. They were around 30 inches wide and irregular curved lengths. Very pretty but they looked like they would be a bear to cut. I think they mentioned "tail" glass, too, which he said they throw away.

miker

Reply to
Michael

There's a rack of "heads & tails" for sale to the left as you enter the glass area of the shop, at the left end of the first table of scrap glass. I picked up a particularly nice one a year or two ago when I was there and used it to make some pretty fused and sandblasted coasters. I don't recall it being too difficult to cut, though of course you do have to be careful to cut on the flatter side.

In case it's not obvious from the name, the heads and tails are the bits at the beginning and end of the sheet where the roller squeezes out any excess glass.

Reply to
Ron Parker

Did you see the same thing at Armstrong when you were there? They have (or had) bins and bins full of them.

Reply to
Moonraker

As a general term with all manufacturers. the obvious and biggest difference is in HOW the glass is mixed in that particular area of the sheet. The tail is very homogenous and even in its color mix, conversely the head is richer in color and much more color separation. Nice stuff for building lamps with, in my opinion, and Youghiogheny is really nice for that.

Reply to
Javahut

Depending on the age of the dealer, they all have their own language. Milk glass.... slag glass.... bottle glass..... bubble glass. Plenty still call colorless glass "white".

Reply to
glassman

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