Glassworks
A glassworks is a production facility for glass and glass products. Special professions are glassmakers and glassblowers . This does not include processing facilities such as glass grinding shops .
description
A glassworks consists of stores for the raw materials quartz sand , soda ( sodium carbonate , Na 2 CO 3 ), potash ( potassium carbonate , K 2 CO 3 ), manganese oxide and metal oxide , a so-called batch bunker for mixing these raw materials according to precise individual recipes, furnace systems for melting the Mixtures, processing facilities , cooling ovens for slow, controlled cooling of the workpieces to avoid stress cracks, and other auxiliary equipment for production as well as storage facilities for finished goods.
In industrially operated glassworks (e.g. flat glass, container glass production), sorting, decoration and packaging systems represent a significant part of the metallurgical equipment.
When it comes to furnace systems, a distinction is made between melting tanks , which are mainly used in the mechanical production of mass-produced goods, and port furnaces for the manual production of high-quality glass objects, although the latter are increasingly being replaced by small and very small tanks.
Glassworks that produce container glass usually mark their products on the lower edge or on the floor with the glass mark of the respective company. The production of hand-made flat glass has become very rare.
history
The oldest known glassworks, it comes from the 13th century BC, was found in Qantir-Piramesses (Egypt).
In Europe, glass production and processing took place in separate workshops until the 11th century. In the Middle Ages, so-called forest glassworks were built north of the Alps in heavily forested areas ( e.g. Bohemian Forest ) , which used large amounts of firewood to obtain the potash required for glass production in ash houses and to fire the melting furnaces and changed their location according to the wood supply.
From the 17th century, the glassworks became settled. In England the changeover to coke firing took place at that time. In Germany, from the industrial revolution to German reunification, there were a particularly large number of glassworks in Lusatia , which, thanks to their rich coal, forest and sand deposits, had particularly good conditions and thus attracted and trained many glassmakers. As a result , there was a particularly high density of glassworks in Weißwasser , eleven in number. The Gernheim glassworks is a technology museum that documents living and working conditions in the glass industry in the age of industrialization . Another historical example is the Silberhütte glassworks . In the 19th century, doctors such as Andreas Röschlaub and Anton Dorn expressed ecological concerns about environmentally harmful emissions from glassworks.
literature
- Otto Bloss: The older glassworks in southern Lower Saxony (= publications by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen. Vol. 9). Lax, Hildesheim 1977, ISBN 3-7848-3639-9 .
- Walter Greiner: On the trail of the glassmaker. From modern times to ancient times. Greiner, Sonthofen 2005, ISBN 3-00-017027-8 .
- André Wilger, Marion Leschinsky, Werner Busch: 4711 from Oberhausen bottles. In: Shift change . Journal for the history of Oberhausen. Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2007, ZDB -ID 2260526-5 , pp. 6-9.
- Rudolf Bergmann: Historical glass production in Westphalia. In: Westphalia regional. The regional online documentation about Westphalia. Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe, Münster 2009.
- Lukas Clemens , Peter Steppuhn (ed.): Glass production. Archeology and history (= interdisciplinary dialogue between archeology and history. Vol. 2). Kliomedia, Trier 2012, ISBN 978-3-89890-162-8 .
- Georg Paulus: Glass industry at Painten (1630-1932). In: DIE OBERPFALZ , vol. 98, issue 4, pp. 230-239, ISSN 0342-9873 , Kallmünz 2010
Individual evidence
- ^ Thilo Rehren, Edgar B. Pusch: Late Bronze Age Glass Production at Qantir-Piramesses, Egypt. In: Science . Vol. 308, No. 5729, June 17, 2005, pp. 1756-1758.
- ^ Anton Dorn: The harmfulness of the projected glassworks in the Weiden zu Bamberg: especially with regard to its firing with Bamberg coal, tested and proven according to medical principles. 1802.
- ^ Urban Wiesing : The Bamberg Glassworks History. An example of medicine and environmental protection in the early 19th century. In: Sudhoff's archive. Volume 73, 1989, pp. 200-207.
