Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Late afternoon, light on the door


Light against the old door frame. Somehow, time has stopped, as I get lost in the patterns.
Most of the windows in the rear part of this house (facing the sun) are “cylinder glass.” It’s not the oldest glass, but glass with an interesting interpretation of light. It’s not the best for seeing what your neighbor is doing in his yard, but it can’t be beat for daydreaming and staring at your walls.
How to make cylinder glass: A glass blower would first blow a very large bubble of glass that was confined within a steel cylinder. After cooling, the resulting cylinder would be cut around the middle along the long dimension. Each half of the cylinder, laid on its rounded side, would be re-heated on a flat surface until the cylinder was flattened by gravity. The uneven expansion of each side of the halves would result in the wavy patterns in the final flattened sheet.

2 comments:

David c.h. Brown said...

Really like this shot Ed. The light patterns look almost like they are reflections from a near by pool of water. Nice tones as well. Thanks, Dave

Ed Deasy said...

David

Thanks. Frankly, I noticed it while I was dozing off on the sofa. After taking the shot I got curious about how older glass windows were made. That is cylinder glass, and there is even an older style of glass made by pouring a sheet on a really flat surface.
Some of our old windows were broken by falling sheets of ice (we've got a tin roof) after a huge snow storm. Some places still make the glass, but its pricey. Its for historically accurate restorations, and its quite costly.

Ed