Message #50206

[forestman]

I just wanted to say that I only said it MAY be the case that Rube's bottle was appliqued and have since said that there seems to be evidence that suggest it's not the case.

The discussion on whether they could applique something like this is interesting though, at least to me.

We know there are glass bottles with appliqued bits applied and they were attached without compromising the base bottles shape. There are other types of appliques, the Tsuda family bottles and some cinnabar lacquer bottles with applied shaped stones for instance.

There are glass artists who sculpt with shaped pieces of flat glass built up in layers that are fused together in a kiln without distorting the glass. Glass doesn't need to be heated to the point where it's becoming pliable enough to easily distort in order to fuse together.

If I wanted to copy Rube's bottle by appliqueing the complicated base I would cover the lower third of my form in glass and when it was cold would start to shape the wave shapes while it was still on the form but without cutting all the way through. I would then do the surface carving when it was still on the form. I would then remove the glass from the form and finish the final shaping of the waves etc. I would mould a base bottle, polish off the mould marks, stand the base bottle in the completed base "overlay" and put it in a kiln until they had fused together. Voila, as my cheese chomping cousins across the Channel would say. 

Regards, Adrian.