Thanks for watching!

Hi, Bill believes all of the pieces from this video series were actually used! Thanks for watching!

Hi! We went straight to the source and asked Bill Gudenrath, here is his response! A BRASS Marver? Brass has two distinct advantages over either mild steel or stainless steel as a marver: 1) if kept polished, as I like to do, it’s WAY prettier, 2) it’s a way better conductor of heat than either steel-and that can be helpful. The word marver comes from ‘marble’, I’ve read here and there; presumably they were made of that-at least somewhere, sometime in the past. Marvering glass does two things: it shapes the glass and it cools the glass. If you primarily want to shape the glass with minimal cooling, stainless is an excellent choice: it’s a poor conductor of heat-as metals go. Marble is even better: it’s a wretched conductor. In fact, as you marver on it, the surface vaporizes, creating a cushion of gas; the glass barely touches the material. This is the same mechanism that causes glass to be cooled so little when you use blocks: there, the glass is held mostly away from the wood by a cushion of steam…locally probably super-heated steam at that; so VERY little cooling. The great American studio glass artist Mark Matthews uses a marble marver for many of his highly specialized procedures where he requires minimal cooling. If, during marvering, you primarily want to cool the glass, brass is a great choice: it’s a great heat conductor; copper would be even better, and so on. For example, if you want to keep the tip (end) of a bubble of glass thicker than the sides, marver the tip for a while holding the blowpipe downward at about a 45 degree angle just before you blow. For this purpose, brass is great, marble would be terrible. In closing: In 1982 when (with Kevin Scanlon) I built my furnace and accompanying furniture, I went to Space Surplus Metals (LONG gone) on Church and Canal streets in NYC to get a 1’ x 2’ piece of stainless for my marver. The owner said that for the same price I could have a beautiful piece of brass. It was love at first sight-and we’ve been together ever since. That is the SOLE reason I have a brass marver! So now when you see me working, you’ll better understand why sometimes I marver very briefly-much shaping, little cooling-and sometimes I’m glued to it for a while-shaping with MUCH cooling. I hope this answers your question, Sir. Bill

@@corningmuseumofglass Wow, thank you so much for the reply! Having it called out specifically in the video made me wonder, as the limited number of marvers I've seen and used have all been stainless. It's great to learn these little details from a master of the craft. Please pass along my thanks to Bill and the team for the detailed reply and all of the wonderful educational videos he and the Corning team have put together over the years.

Thanks for watching!