Fracture-streamer glass

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Fracture-streamer glass refers to a sheet of glass with a pattern of glass strings, and irregularly shaped, thin glass wafers, affixed to its surface. Louis Comfort Tiffany made use of such textured glass to represent, for example, twigs, branches and grass, and distant foliage.

Streamers are prepared from very hot molten glass, gathered at the end of a punty (pontil) that is rapidly swung back and forth and stretched into long, thin strings that rapidly cool and harden.

The irregular glass wafers, called "fractures," are prepared from very hot, colored molten glass, gathered at the end of a blowpipe. A large bubble is forcefully blown until the walls of the bubble rapidly stretch, cool and harden. The resulting glass bubble has paper-thin walls and is immediately shattered into shards.

These hand-stretched streamers and hand blown shards are pressed on the surface of the molten glass sheet during the rolling process, to which they become permanently fused.

In order to cut fracture-streamer glass, the sheet may be scored on the side without fractures and streamers with a carbide glass cutter, and broken at the score line with breaker-grozier pliers.

[edit] See also

• Architectural glass
• Drapery glass
• Fracture glass
• Lead came and copper foil glasswork
• Ring mottle glass
• Rippled glass
• Stained glass
• Streamer glass