LEARN
Working with waste and local materials sourced in and around the River Thames
-The Thames Glass Process
There are several stages of sourcing and production that go into the making of Thames Glass. Working closely with geo chemists and archaeologists from PEGG (The Post Disciplinary and experimental Glass Group).
The first step is to formulate a recipe taking inspiration from ancient glass making. This is often a soda-lime glass, working with a former, a flux, and a stabilizer.
-Stage One
Location
Thames Glass is made using local river sands, wood ash, and waste quagga mussel shells sourced from Thames Water. Each of these materials contributes towards the basic chemical components needed within glassmaking.
The sand is sourced within 1 mile of the Thames in Oxfordshire, the wood ash from bracken in surrounding forests which is cut down due to management control, and the quagga mussel shells from Thames Water reservoirs including Frilford and Walthamstow.
Soda ash and additional fluxes are also used to help lower the overall melting temperature and require less energy to melt.
-Stage Two
Cleaning, Cooking, Crushing
Once the materials have been sourced, the next stage is processing. This includes cleaning, cooking, and crushing the raw ingredients. The sand is firstly dried out to remove any moisture, often using an oven or natural sunlight if it is the right climate.
It is then sieved to get the finest grains for the batch. The shells are washed to remove any dirt, and then similarly dry out using the sun or an oven depending on the accessibility.
They are then crushed using a blender and sieved to separate the powder from any shell residue. The bracken is dried out and then burnt using an incinerator to create ash. This is also sieved to get the finest possible powder for the batch.
-Stage Three
Making Batch
The next stage is mixing all the raw materials into a batch, making sure they are homogenised. The batch must be mixed incredibly well and have a consistent grain size small enough to ease the melting in the furnace.
To avoid any dust escaping, Thames Glass is made in designated extraction booths and put in sealed bags once mixed.
-Stage Four
Glass Blowing
The batch is then taken to the hot shop where it is preheated in a kiln to help chunk down the materials, alter the colour and help with the overall melting process. This is then added to a furnace in stages using a ‘scoop’, and melted down into glass chunks.
These glass chunks are then remelted to eventually get to the workable glass. The glass is then blown and shaped into the desired shapes working with skilled glassblowers, and then placed into the kiln to anneal.
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Pearl Green Bio Glass
Pearl Green were some of the first hand-blown Thames Glass pieces ever made. The difference in the colour of the pieces comes from working with two different recipes with two different sand sources. The designs are based on ancient drinking vessels and jugs.
All pieces were made at The Glass Hub using the nano melt furnace, in collaboration with glass blowers KT Rothe and Sacha Delabre. -
Blue Purple Bio Glass
Learning from the mistakes made during the first melt. The purple glass has had manganese added to create the rich violet colour, something which was once added to ancient glass recipes to act as both a colorant and a decolorant.
The blue colour is from the oxides present in the shells. These two glass recipes were melted in separate batches, hence the two different colours and collections.
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Bio Glass Carafe and Tumbler
The most recent collection of Thames Glass pieces. Made in collaboration with Here Design and working with silica/plaster moulds to blow the pieces.
These were the first-ever prototypes made of the Thames Glass carafe and tumbler, with the aim of the collection to promote drinking tap water rather than buying plastic bottles.
“There are many ways we can help prevent the spread of non-native species, which left unchecked can have a significant and often destructive impact. Adopting the right biosecurity measures is essential to protect our local environments and, in this case, has the added benefit of using the quagga mussels in the creation of stunning glassware, making this project hugely exciting in the field of sustainability.”
— Rebecca Elliott, biodiversity manager,
Thames Water