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to a doughy consistency in great lead-lined bins. Daily for a month it is
kneaded by the bare feet of a workman to render it tough as putty. With
utmost care it is then built by hand in a room that is constantly warm and
moist. First the bottom is formed four inches thick. Then the sides are
gradually shaped from the sticky material, through a period of six weeks,
tapering to a thickness at the top of three inches. The ordinary size is
33½ inches high and 42½ inches wide, holding about 1500 pounds
of melted glass. When finished the pots stand from two months to a year--
the longer the better-- in the pot-room to dry. Then they are baked in the
annealing oven or a small furnace, where the temperature gradually rises to
that of the melting furnace, and are transferred at once to their posts of
duty, to be glazed inside with melted glass, imprisoned with their backs to
the fire and their gaping mouths to the outer world, ready to be filled with
the mixture to be melted.
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But in spite of the best pains a pot frequently breaks after a brief trial.
As soon as a crack is seen the furnace must be slacked, and the casement of
brick and clay battered down, with screens of sheet-iron to shield the
attacking party from the glare and heat. Only after a siege of several
hours are the dozen men able to extract the red-hot monster from his cavern
of fire, and drag him on a truck out-doors, while all faces are covered from
the blinding intensity of his glow. Such a scene provides unparalleled
facilities for "hot pot" imaginations, and might even assist Dante's
conception of an orthodox Inferno.
But there are many serious disadvantages attached
to the use of pots either open or covered. While the melted glass is
being worked the furnace must be cooled, and when the material is exhausted
the men must wait ten or twelve hours for another batch to be melted. The
cracking
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