Lampworking?

[effemess]

Why is making glass beads with a torch called lampworking? I read on the net its because people used to melt glass with an oil lamp... but Im afraid this just doesn't seem right to me - either the glass was much easier to melt or it was some powerful oil lamp !!!
Any ideas please ............

[Dennis Brady]

Why is making glass beads with a torch called lampworking? I read on the net its because people used to melt glass with an oil lamp... but Im afraid this just doesn't seem right to me - either the glass was much easier to melt or it was some powerful oil lamp !!!
Any ideas please ............

It's an antiquate term that many like to use because of it's history. Most people involved with glass work know what "lampworking" means but outsiders more often think it means making stained glass lamps. That's why many have abandoned the term "lampworking" and instead adopted the term "torchworking" or "flameworking". They all mean the same thing. Personally, I prefer the more general term "glass artisan".

[pam]

Actually glass was melted over an oil lamp at one time, and as people learned more, they added bellows to add extra air into the flame to make it burn hotter, then progressed to a bunsen burner type flame. That's where the term comes from, the oil lamp.

[kbinkster]

You don't need a super hot flame just to melt glass. You can melt stringer with the flame of a candle, afterall. But, the hotter and cleaner your flame is, the more you can do with the glass and the faster you can go.

[RaymondMillbrae]

Hmmmmm...interesting.

LAMPWORKING DEFINITION (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampworking)

In Christ: Raymond

[simvet02]

I found that when I used the term "lampwork" I had to add additional information about what it meant, usually something refering to glass and torch so now I just say glass torch work or something like that.

[Dennis Brady]

I found that when I used the term "lampwork" I had to add additional information about what it meant, usually something refering to glass and torch so now I just say glass torch work or something like that.

The term "kilnformed glass" was adopted to include and explain fusing and slumping glass. Perhaps "flameworked glass" would be the most universally understood term.

[simvet02]

I like that, "flameworked glass". I'm a flameworker....that intriguing!

[Dennis Brady]

I like that, "flameworked glass". I'm a flameworker....that intriguing!

You can join that with "formed in fire" to describe how your work is made.

[Dale M.]

When I first started lampworking it was common to use "lampworking" in place of the archaic or antiquated term or phrase of "working at the lamp", referring to "lamp" worked glass from antiquity....

Dale

[pam]

We've been using flameworking for many, many years now, also at times torchworking, but I think flameworking has always won out - has a nice sound to it.

[menty666]

Try some satake. That stuff'll melt when you look at it funny :)

The phrase that always makes me want to laugh at the person asking is when they ask if my ornaments are handblown. That makes me think of a clown blowing soap bubbles through a ring formed with the fingers. Depending on what how long I've been entertaining similar questions I'll either nod enthusiastically and tell them that I make it all myself, or tell them that I tend to use tools, I get burned less. :)

[Dennis Brady]

or tell them that I tend to use tools, I get burned less.

At a craft show, a lady looking at one of my hanging glass panels asked, "Can it break?".

I replied, "Only if you drop it".

[effemess]

Thank you for all that information everyone :)
I also found this, which was very interesting... especially as I also looked up Blaschka and Ginny Ruffner :)
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:bRFHeGYS9ogJ:www.artofvenice.com/art/Lampwork1.htm+origins+of+the+word+lampworkin

[menty666]

At a craft show, a lady looking at one of my hanging glass panels asked, "Can it break?".

I replied, "Only if you drop it".


LOL

[neagle]

Try some satake. That stuff'll melt when you look at it funny :)

The phrase that always makes me want to laugh at the person asking is when they ask if my ornaments are handblown. That makes me think of a clown blowing soap bubbles through a ring formed with the fingers. Depending on what how long I've been entertaining similar questions I'll either nod enthusiastically and tell them that I make it all myself, or tell them that I tend to use tools, I get burned less. :)

:grin:LOL

beware Wikipedia....it's not always right....

[kebira]

I've been involved with antique hand-made marbles for decades and am forever researching the where's and when's of many of these gems."Lampworking" as a descriptive phrase has origins in the late 1800's and was used to describe the practice of making glasswork,be it marbles or bottles,etc, after normal work hours using scrap glass culls.This would supplement whatever wages folks made in those early sweatshops.Like today's pipemakers,those "lampworkers" surely pushed the creative medium to new heights.