# "Whittled" blob top bottle question - swirl



## steveinlanc (May 29, 2008)

I have a neat C. HEILEMANN PHILADA blob top bottle that has really heavy "whittling" on the neck.  If you run your thumb around the neck it feels like the ridges on the side of a coin.  

 Anyway, part of the whittling visibly comes down off the neck like a ribbon and swirls down and around the body, like a stripe on a barber pole, making almost two complete revolutions around the bottle and cutting across the embossing in several places.

 Is this kind of effect common to whittled bottles?  It looks cool as all get-out, even with the bottle needing more cleaning, but I've never seen this before.  Here's a photo of where it starts.  If this really excites anyone I'll put really big photos up on a web page showing the whole thing.


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## steveinlanc (May 29, 2008)

Big photos are up at http://imageserver.lancaster-internet.net/heilemann/

 I'd really love to hear some opinions about this bottle and if there are many like it out there.


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## steveinlanc (May 29, 2008)

Ok well now I'm more confused about "whittled".

 Reggie's glossary says:



> Whittled - curved line (or stretch) marks that run vertically along the neck of the bottle, caused by hand finishing of glass when lip is twisted onto the neck


 
 Which is what I'm seeing here, especially in light of the blob being worked heavily over the outside of the sheared lip as much as 1/2 inch.  But you say stretching lobes, and I look on ebay and sellers call anything remotely crude in way "whittled".

 So is there a consensus in the majority of what "whittled" is ?


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## GuntherHess (May 30, 2008)

Those lines running down the body look like etching from being buried to me. 

 Whittling was typically caused by blowing glass in mold that werent warmed up to proper temperature.

https://www.antique-bottles.net/forum/m-97065/mpage-1/key-whittled/tm.htm#97065


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## steveinlanc (May 30, 2008)

Gunter go to http://imageserver.lancaster-internet.net/heilemann/  and look at the close-up images.  This isn't etching, it's absolutely original to the making of the bottle and "embossed" over the top of the surface of the bottle.  I understand what you're referring to, but this is ALL glass, not loss.


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## westernbittersnut (Jun 12, 2008)

Those swirling marks are caused the molten glass starting to cool and stiffen up as it stretches across the surface of the iron mold due to the air pressure applied by the glass blower thru the blowpipe. 

 I have a beautiful Cassin,s Grape Brandy Bitters that has these same marks crossing over all four panels in a wavy pattern. It really adds a lot of character to the glass and enhances the appearance of the bottle.


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## beendiggin (Jun 12, 2008)

> Ok well now I'm more confused about "whittled".


 
 Steve...this is a whittled bottle. It looks like it was carved or chipped... some would say it looks like it was blown into a hand carved wooden mold, but as lobey correctly pointed out it's from the mold being cold and the majority of molds were made of metal.  However, some early dip molds were made of wood, but those bottles would be of the black glass ale types.  Some bottle making tools were wooden, also.


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## GuntherHess (Jun 12, 2008)

> http://imageserver.lancaster-internet.net/heilemann/ and look at the close-up images.


 
 I see some vertical stress marks on the neck in your photo. I see some whitish concentric lines that look like ground etching. I dont see anything I would call whittling. Some people might call the stress marks on the neck a whittling effect, I dont think that is the common use of the term whittled. 

 I dont think I have ever seen a bottle that was verified to be made in a wooden mold. I'd love to see one if anyone has a photo or article link.  I wouldnt expect to see any actual wood grain on those since the surface would be carbonized and constantly kept wet to prevent combustion. Supposedly the steam forms an insulating layer between the glass and wood. I would expect to see a lot of stress effects in the glass since a wood mold could never be heated up before glass blowing.


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## tigue710 (Jun 12, 2008)

yup, Reggie is dead wrong on that one...  you bottle has some nice stretch marks in the neck that were made as the lip was tooled, but not only did the glass twist but it had also cooled to much witch made the glass raise up the way it did as it came into contact with the mold or tool.

 Whittle looks exactly like it sounds, like it was whittled...,

 You do have a little sickness in that bottle too, the white lines that stretch around the shoulder and body...


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## beendiggin (Jun 12, 2008)

> I dont think I have ever seen a bottle that was verified to be made in a wooden mold. I'd love to see one if anyone has a photo or article link.


 
 Heres your link:

 From: http://www.sha.org/bottle/body.htm#Dip%20Molds

One-piece round dip molds would leave no classic narrow, raised mold seams on the body of the bottle (more below).  Two (or more) piece, shoulder height, round dip molds could potentially leave fitting joint induced vertical mold seams on the body of the bottle.  This appears to have been uncommon as the author of this website has never seen a dip molded round bottle with obvious side seams.  Although it surely occurred, it was possibly more common in the era prior to that covered by this website.  Multi-sided dip mold bottles (pictured below) may likely have been made from multi-part dip molds, though side seams showing the interface between the mold pieces are rarely seen, being either masked by the corner edges of the bottle or the bottle body was fire polished to the point that seams are unrecognizable.  Dip molds were made of a variety of materials including wood and harder materials like various metals, clay, and clay lined wood.  Wooden dip molds (a common pre-19th century mold material) had to be kept continuously wet in order to survive long the intense heat of molten glass.  This allowed steam to form in between the hot glass and mold surface causing the glass to "ride" on the steam cushion making the evidence of molding very difficult to distinguish from free-blown bottles, although this feature did make it easier for the bottle to be removed from the dip mold (Boow 1991).  Sometimes the expanding parison would touch the sides of wooden mold before the cushion of steam formed leaving ripples, though this feature may be impossible to positively distinguish the use of a wooden mold versus glass imperfections (e.g., whittle marks) caused in metal molds for other reasons (Tooley 1953; Kendrick 1968; Toulouse 1969b; Jones & Sullivan 1989; Van den Bossche 2001; Deiss pers. comm. 2005).


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## GuntherHess (Jun 12, 2008)

I dont see it, which bottle is made in a wooden mold?


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## beendiggin (Jun 12, 2008)

> Dip molds were made of a variety of materials including wood and harder materials like various metals, clay, and clay lined wood. Wooden dip molds (a common pre-19th century mold material) had to be kept continuously wet in order to survive long the intense heat of molten glass.


 
 I would surmise from this quote that because wood was a common pre- 19th century mold material that bottles from that era were blown in them.  It does not state which specific bottles, just that the wooden dip mold was used commonly.


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## GuntherHess (Jun 12, 2008)

_Appealing though this notion is, the vast majority of molds used to produce bottles during the era covered by this webpage (1800 through the 1950s) were made of various metals, or in the earlier years, fired clay (Van den Bossche 2001).  Although wooden molds were extensively used in the very early days of bottle making (pre-1800 up until the 1850s) and continued to be used for some applications until the early 20th century, including for the __block__ in free-blowing, wood had too short of a life span to be of much use for most industrial bottle making where the temperature of molten glass was 2000Â°F and wood burns at about 1/4th that temperature _


If I read Bill's text correctly I think he is saying almost all bottles were made in metal molds after 1800. Possibly some bottles were made in wood molds but since those molds werent suitable for mass production the bottles made in them must be relatively rare. 

I havent seen a lot of pre-19th century dip mold bottles but I can believe many of the ones that exist were made in wood base molds. I'm not sure how you would ever verify a particular bottle was. I was hoping to find that there was some particular charactoristic of those bottles compared to other molds.


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## tigue710 (Jun 12, 2008)

I still have yet to see any proof that wood was used.  The heat of the glass would have instantly vaporized any H2O, and burned the wood extensively after only a couple uses...  All early wood carvings that depict dip molds show metal molds or describe the molds as metal.  Its still a romantic idea from early bottle collecting that is hard to let go...  

 Another indicator is that when a metal mold had water in it while in use the steam exploded, leaving evidence in the glass as discussed on this forum before...

 No disrespect to Mr Lindsey, and I would agree that most of his collected knowledge is true to the point, but He is just cross referencing material along with his own experience to create his site, there is no guarantee that all of his references are correct or well researched  (By the author he referenced)...Bill I know has done extensive research into backing up all of his site...

 Early American glass making and the understanding of how it was practiced is still not even considered for study in the professional field, it is an area of research still in its infancy mostly conjured up out of hearsay and calculated guesswork...


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## poisons4me (Jun 12, 2008)

Of the 300 plus blobs i have i have a bunch with sretch marks on neck and a few with "whittle" whether from a cold mold ect.,but as far as wooden molds go..used extensivley.
 "Full-size molds, used to shape the entire article, have been utilized since the 1st century A.D. Full-size two-piece molds with no interior decoration were usually made from hard fruit woods. They were used extensively by early American glass factories as a cheap way to fashion containers of uniform shape. A log of hard wood was split, then carved out and smoothed into the shape desired. When used by the glassblower, the wooden block was kept wet but would begin to char and burn, producing a steam layer which actually helped smooth the molten glass."

 Mold 
 A form used for shaping and/ or decorating molten glass. Some molds (e.g., *dip molds*) impart a pattern to the *parison,* which is then withdrawn, and *blown* and tooled to the desired shape and size; other molds (sometimes known as full-size molds) are used to give the object its final form, with or without decoration. Dip molds consist of a single part and are usually shaped like beakers. Full-size molds usually have two or more parts and can be opened to extract the object. Nowadays, most molds are made of metal, but stone, wood, plaster, and earthenware molds were used in the past and are still occasionally employed today. 
 the first paragraph is from weaton and second from corning glass museum. Wood molds are a fact. as for the white swirl lines that from ground etching,whether it feels like its etched is not what your after,the word etch is used loosley there. I know you have to polish them to get rid of it as it only on the surface inside or out.


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## beendiggin (Jun 12, 2008)

It would be a feat to accurately verify that a particular bottle was blown in  a wooden mold..Maybe someone who specifically collects pre 1800 bottles would be another wise choice as a reference.  If there is a collective view among researchers that wooden molds were in fact used at one time, then I would tend to believe that there is some truth in it.  Any pre 1800 experts on this site?


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## poisons4me (Jun 12, 2008)

Wheaton and corning arn't good enough...?they were mostly used for bottles whitout emboss,so to think one with emboss was done in a wood mold might be a stretch.


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## beendiggin (Jun 12, 2008)

Poisons4me,  I agree with you.  My guess is any bottle blown in  a wooden mold pre 1800 was a simple unembossed form.  I think the original question was: is there a known example of a wooden mold blown bottle, and if so, where is it so we can get a look at it and compare it to other bottles. Also, how can you verify that a particular bottle came from a wooden mold? Are there some ditinct characteristics or not?  It seems that researchers can only say wooden molds existed and were used, but cannot attribute a particular bottle to a wooden mold through any distinct features. So it must be extremely hard to tell the difference between wooden molds or other types of molds.


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## GuntherHess (Jun 12, 2008)

Wood molds for glass blowing are still used ...
http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/molds.htm
 The traditional wood seems to be fruit woods (probably for the same reasons sculptors like it). From several sources I have read, wood has been used in glass blowing for quite a long time. The molds dont last long but then again it doesnt take as much effort to make them as it does for iron molds.
 I doubt a wood mold could have embossing. 
 I have seen a couple dip molded with embossing but the embossing is really hard to read. I remember Chris mentioning one from Baltimore Glass Works some time ago.


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## Penn Digger (Jun 13, 2008)

Back to the original post...that's not "whittling" as beendiggin's post shows what whittling to every bottle digger/collector I know perceives it to be.  The term "stretch marks" brings back bad memories.  Nice bottle though!

 PD


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## sweetrelease (Jun 13, 2008)

> ORIGINAL: GuntherHess
> 
> 
> 
> ...


  matt if you ever get to come up to basto nj ,there is a great little town there. it has been turned into a state park but most of the town still is there. they made mostly iron there back in the 1700"s till the late 1800's but they did make glass also. they have many "wooden" molds for bottles on display and most are burned ,but some are still whole. they have a whole display of the molds and the way they where used,cool stuff. seems to me that the wood mold just might be real,but who knows ,matt


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## GuntherHess (Jun 13, 2008)

That would be cool to see. Early wood molds have to be pretty rare since they werent likely to survive for numerous reasons (iron ones didnt fair much better).


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## steveinlanc (Jun 14, 2008)

Wow. I never thought I'd start an interesting thread in here.  Cool.

 Ok, go look again at the images at http://imageserver.lancaster-internet.net/heilemann/

 The photos are a continuous go-round of the bottle.  This isn't "ground-effect" anything, it's a continuous stream of over-the-bottle-and embossing glass that is obviously following the blower's twirling on the punty rod.

 The stuff on the neck is cool and is indeed stretching, but what catches my eye is that the stretched bits end up trailing the whole way around the bottle.

 He11 just look at the photos, in order.  All I did was turn the damned thing a few inches each shot as I went 'round.  I'd LOVE to see the effects after a proper cleaning.

 And as stated in other threads, it's for sale and available for inspection to anyone in the vicinity of Lancaster PA, along with all my other glass.  Doubtful I will have time to wait for Shupp's.

 Cheers.


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## tigue710 (Jun 14, 2008)

it does look like your bottle has some whittle, but what your talking about are stretch marks, they were made as the lip was applied to the bottle, and a tool was used to turn the lip into shape while at the same time the glass on the body of bottle had slightly cooled on the outside...

 Wow Matt, nice bit of research!  I stand corrected...  but still stand by most glass house in America not having used wood molds in early production.


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