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Today Art Glass is made both by hand and using mechanical means. Antique Glass also known as Pot Metal Glass, is made in comparitively small sheets by dipping a long tube into molten glass through a small opening in a glass furnace known as a "glory hole" and collecting a lump on the end. The lump is formed into a bubble by blowing down the tube creating a hollow cylinder. While still "plastic" the ends of the elongated bubble are removed and the cylinder is cut down one side and allowed to settle on a flat stone surface. In settling the underside of the glass becomes relatively flat. The upper surface retains the undulations from blowing which makes interesting variations in the colour and texture. The bottom side picks up subtle irregularities from the stone. Antique glasses most resemble glass made in the past. Hand blown autique glass from Europe and England is refered to as European Antique.
Another interesting type of glass is Flashed Glass.. Flashed glass is Antique Glass with two or more seperate and generally contrasting colors blown and fused together. A lump of one glass is taken up from the molten mass on the end of the tube and dipped into another mass of coloured glass. When it is withdrawn it is covered with a "coating" of the 2nd coloured glass and, as the bubble is blown, the coating is spread out to form a very thin layer on top. Flashed glass is more expensive than other glasses because of this dual process and is used extensively for etching where parts of the thin layer are removed (usually by sandblasting) to reveal the color of the base glass.
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