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Paul Wissmach Glass Company

I had the great pleasure to visit Wissmach Glass Company
 
Wissmach Glass Company
420 Stephen Street
Paden City, WV 26159
Phone# 304-337-2253
Fax# 304-337-8800
Email: wissmach@rcvideo.com
www.wissmachglass.com

I had been told that they were a stained glass company, but nothing would prepare me for the amazement I had watching their world-class glassmaking!
 
Paul Wissmach founded the company in 1904, and as Wissmach's history web page states:
 
Mr. Wissmach had a dream to create beautiful colored rolled sheet glass to inspire stained glass work,
today his dream has been built into the manufacturer of the largest variety of colored rolled sheet glass in the world.
The year 1910 marked an important date in the company's history as it changed
its name to The Paul Wissmach Glass Company, Inc. Mr. Wissmach's dream had finally been realized.
In the early 1960's company officials decided to concentrate on producing the finest colored rolled sheet glass.
Today, over 13,000 square feet of glass is produced in Wissmach's manufacturing facility each day.
On average, eight to ten different color runs of glass are made daily.
Throughout the years, Wissmach Glass has built an inventory that includes over 3,000 colors, tints and patterns.
While preserving the many traditional colors and mixes of the past, Wissmach constantly introduces new colors
and types of glass to meet the demands of the artists of today and the artists of tomorrow.

And with a COE of 94 (excepting the mottled line) Wissmach Glass is beautiful to use for fusing and slumping projects too, as this PDF explains the firing schedule and more!
 
This web page explains how to get sample sets of the various Wissmach Glass colors.
 
Want to see the wide variety of dazzling Wissmach colors, online? Click on any of the following links:
(each link below shows only one example of a complete palette of colors)
Opalescent Glass
Opalescent: Opalescent glass is made with a combination of white glass and a cathedral color.
The opacity of this type of glass is in relation to the amount of white glass used in its creation.
Our dense opal base glass uses a higher consistency of white glass than our light opal base glass.
Because of this change in mixtures, dense opal base glass is much more opaque than our light opal base glasses.
Wisspy Glass
Wisspy: Wisspy Opalescent glass uses a mixture of opaque white glass and a cathedral color.
During production, the white glass is added to the cathedral glass and mixed together
giving wispy opalescent glass soft touches of white in each shadow.
English Muffle Glass
English Muffle: Originally popular in Victorian windows,
English Muffle glass is being reintroduced in both restoration and contemporary stained glass work.
English Muffle glass is known for its traditional muted colors,
its highly refractive texture and crystalline quality.
The texture appears as a non-directional ripple, allowing for minimal waste.
Cathedral Glass
Cathedral: Cathedral glass made up of a single color.
Opacity of the glass is dependent to the color of the sheet.
Lighter colors will allow more light to pass through and darker colors will prevent light from passing through.
Streaky Glass
Streaky: Streaky glass is manufactured by adding a color or colors to a clear glass base.
The color is mixed with the clear base to provide streaks of color throughout the sheet.
The transparency of streaky glass is dependent on the colors used.
Clear Textures
Clear Textures: Wissmach glass is available in a variety of textures to suit the exact needs of the artist.
Textures are dependent on the type of glass ordered, but can be applied to any color of that type.
For example, any color of Cathedral glass can be made with the
Cube texture or any Opalescent or Wispy texture can come with the Stream-X texture.
Mystic Glass
The Paul Wissmach Co., Inc. proudly presents our Centennial Edition of Mystic in twenty colors.
One hundred years of glass manufacturing experience. Helping you bring your stained glass dreams to light.

 




 
Video #1: Pouring Ladle of Molten Blue Glass into Rollers (17.5 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #2: Rolling the Ladle to the Rollers, then Pouring (31.2 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #3: Pushing the Hot Sheet into the Lehr (4.1 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #4: Another view of the Molten Glass flowing through the rollers (30.5 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #5: Cutting/Finishing the Sheet at the end of the Lehr [Aerial View] (40.1 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #6: Cutting/Finishing the Sheet at the end of the Lehr [Floor View] (39.5 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 
Video #7: Tony Patti got to try his hand at cutting the sheet -- harder than it looks! (20.9 MBytes) - Click Image Below...

 


 
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