I enjoyed a tour of Kokomo Opalescent Glass (KOG) with a small part of my quilting bee. My mom made leaded art glass when I was growing up. So I always liked seeing the glass she brought home from KOG. The ends were thick and lumpy from the rolling process and the colors swirled together. When I she and I made a stained glass for a lifelong friend, we went to KOG to buys some glass. It was a joy looking through all of the beautiful sheets of glass. So when my friends asked if I wanted to go on the tour, I didn’t hesitate to agree.
The tour didn’t disappoint! We had an enjoyable time and learned a lot. I loved photographing the glowing fires and glass.
The glass furnaces that run 24/7. These are very large, but no one is standing near it to get the scale.
A furnace that hasn’t been installed yet.
oven that the furnace goes into to heat up to be able to install it into the big octagon of furnaces. Which has to be installed hot while the other furnaces are burning. And fast so it doesn’t crack from the temperature difference.
testing if the molten glass is ready to go.
Oven fires
Glowing door to a furnace.
Hot glass in a very heavy metal ladle. It has to be moved quickly to keep it from cooling off too fast.
Ladleful about to be added to the pile of molten glass
Pouring the ladleful
Stirring the colors together for ribbons of mixing colors.
Stirring the molten glass to mix the colors a little
Pushing the stirred molten glass into the rollers.
Texture rollers to add texture to the sheet glass
Directing the glass going into the rollers and coming out as a textured sheet of molten glass and then off to the ovens to cool down slow enough to not crack.
finished sheet glass trimmed down to size
The head of a glass sheet that is cut off because it is not even. I enjoy these pieces in their irregularity.
I had a lot of fun photographing the process, in particular the molten glass and furnace.