Trip-Day 4- Mosser Glass Cambridge, OH

We packed up and left OgleBay Resort this morning and headed to Mosser Glass a family owned pressed glass company, located in Cambridge, OH. The colors of the glass here were the most unique in my opinion.

The process is simple but still has a need for an artists touch. 

First the Gatherer uses a rod to obtain molten glass from the furnace to place into the press.

 Next, the Presser pulls down on the arm of the mold to press the glass into its shape, each piece has its own mold, this particular piece is a pitcher.

Once the molten glass sets in the pressed mold for a couple minutes to cool and form to the shape of the mold it is placed back into the fire in order to heat up again to become pliable to form thetop and   spout of the pitcher by hand.

Here is where an artistic hand is still needed, the spout is still created by hand and must be uniform on all pieces.

Next to set the piece and make the glass shiny it is placed into a small high heat blow torch type flame, this is called glazing.

The last manual step is the inspector, he glazes the bottom with a blowtorch and ensures the quality and consistency of each piece.

Then the piece is placed in a cooling oven on a conveyor belt that moves very very slowly, to allow the glass to harden by cooling down.

After about 3 hours out the other end of the cooling oven, the finish product is ready o be packed

On this particular day they were producing two pieces the Pickett shown here and headlight lenses.  Although Mosser glass is located in Ohio, all of their molds are made in West Virginia.

Discussion question

1. Create a Venn Diagram on the similarities and differences of hand blown vs pressed glass. Think about the process, the products, and the value of each type.  Refer back to the blog post Trip Day One to review information about hand blown glass.