A marver is a tool used in glassblowing. It generally is made of a polished steel, brass, or graphite surface attached to a metal or wooden table. For fine applications such as lampworking, a smaller hand-held implement may instead be used. As a tool, marvers date back to glassblowing techniques of the Roman Empire and were made of marble.[1][2]
Warm glass is rolled on the marver, both to shape it and as a means of temperature control.[3] With a high specific heat capacity, the surface absorbs heat from the glass; because of the relatively slow flow of heat through the glass, it does so particularly from the outermost material, forming a more viscous skin.
Because the glass comes in direct contact with the marver, it must be kept exceptionally clean in order to prevent points of poor conduction or the transfer of debris into glass worked upon it. Metallic marvers are generally rubbed with steel wool and then wiped with rubbing alcohol to prevent rust.
- ^ Stern, E. Marianne (1999-07-01). "Roman Glassblowing in a Cultural Context". American Journal of Archaeology. 103 (3): 441–484. doi:10.2307/506970. ISSN 0002-9114. JSTOR 506970. S2CID 193096925.
- ^ Studio studies : operations, topologies and displacements. Ignacio Farias, Alex Wilkie. London. 2016. ISBN 978-1-317-63043-2. OCLC 925282907.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ O'Connor, Erin (May 2007). "Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing: The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle towards Proficiency". The Sociological Review. 55 (1_suppl): 126–141. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00697.x. ISSN 0038-0261. S2CID 143169210.