mixing scrap clear in with your batch

[Nick Jones]

Hi guys,
I'm curious if anyone mixes clear scrap in with their batch on a regular basis. I'm talking about cullet that was from a previous batch melt. Will this cause problems? I was drawing blanks in the archives.
Thank you.

[Brent Hickenbotham]

mixing in scrap cullet is a great way to reuse glass just make sure the cullet is clean. and don't throw too big of chunks in, I've seen some pretty gnarly explosions. It doesn't seem to affect the quality of the batch too much. You will notice it on thicker clear work.

[Kenny Pieper]

Mixing cullet with batch is done all the time both in industry and the private shop. It helps the melt go quicker. I keep a knock off bucket thats for clear only and that goes back in the next melt.

[Steve Stadelman]

If you fail to get only clear back in and get a little bit of transparent color in you won't even notice, but if you get that scrap of yellow or red in you will!

[Doug Chaussee]

We also keep our clear scrap apart from the color scrap and recycle it into the batch as needed. At time we use about 10% scrap with the batch and other times load just scrap in if we don't require a full load of batch. We do make sure we don't get any strong color in there and eliminate all of the iron flake pieces when cleaning the scrap. We have not noticed any difference in the quality when mixing the batch and scrap that way.

[Pete VanderLaan]

Just don't let color rod color get in it in even the tiniest amounts. Major cording will occur. Otherwise it's a good idea.

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[Scott Novota]

When I was at corning(CMOG) a couple years back it was said they collect all the scrap glass and throw it into the colbalt blue pot. Color glass and all, then just throw in a chunk of cobalt and it over powers everything.

Anyone know if this statement is true?


Scott.
.

[Henry Halem]

Corning? Do you mean Steuben? Never saw color at Steuben. Funny story though; Many years ago at our 1979 Corning meeting I ran a raffle of vendor products. C & R Loo had given us about 6 bars of dense Kugler color bars. The raffle for those bars was won by, you guessed it, someone from Steuben. By the way the 1979 journal from that meeting was one of the best ever produced. It had a great balance of artists, presentations, and wonderful tech stuff.

[Hugh Jenkins]

We have always recycled any clean clear that we have. I even sort the color scrap for any significant clear moile chunks. If it sits around very long we rinse of the dust in a spagetti seive and drip dry before throwing it in with the batch.

[Kenny Pieper]

If I remember correctly Steubens furnace has a continuous stream coming out the bottom. When someone needs some glass they will order up a certain size cup then someone in the basement will put the cup under the stream fill it and then send it up to the glassblowers with a tiny elevator. The rest of the time its being turned into frit to go back in the furnace.

[Nick Jones]

Ah, thanks for the response. Diverting some of that glass from the landfill sure is satisfying.

I asked about this because I thought it might introduce cording into the melt. In my brain it seemed that glass from old melts could end up becoming a slightly different glass in the presence of the fluxes from the batch. I suppose it does all get mixed up in the bubbling cottage cheese stage.

[Charles Friedman]

Nick, What kind of furance are you running?? Elec. gas # ?? Knowing that, will help for more info.

[Nick Jones]

500lbs tank furnace, natural gas. We've basically figured out the cords. I was just curious about what's going on in the melt.

[Mark Wilson]

Originally posted by Scott Novota
When I was at corning(CMOG) a couple years back it was said they collect all the scrap glass and throw it into the colbalt blue pot. Color glass and all, then just throw in a chunk of cobalt and it over powers everything. Anyone know if this statement is true?
Scott..

this was SOP at the studio that i learned to blow glass at. just about everything from the crack off barrel went into the one day tank that was colored. during the 4 years that i blew at that studio, the color day tank was changed to various dark dense colors including black, cobalt blue, and various hard to describe colors. the recycling of the glass from the crack off barrel was done to save money. the other 4 day tanks were charged only with clean clear cullet.

[Pete VanderLaan]

one part in ten thousand of cobalt shows very distinct color.