What Is Cut Crystal? See 3 Ways The Fancy Stuff Is Made - Co

As the Northwest is menaced by a drippy attempt at a hurricane, I'm finally starting to understand sauna culture. Who cares that nature wants to drown or freeze you if you have a hot box to sit in? But Oregon

isn't

a sauna culture, so we're doing other things storm-tossed people do to survive: lighting candles and drinking. If you've ever studied a piece of nice glassware in candlelight, you've probably wondered how the thing got to be so... sparkly. The answer is surprisingly un-simple. Here are a few insights into the making of cut crystal and nice barware that I've gathered whenever my power comes back on.

当西北部受到飓风的威胁时，我终于开始了解桑拿文化了。谁在乎大自然想淹死或冻结你，如果你有一个热盒子坐在？但是俄勒冈

州不是

桑拿文化，所以我们正在做其他的事情风暴折腾的人做生存：点燃蜡烛和喝酒。如果你曾经在烛光下研究过一件漂亮的玻璃器皿，你可能会想知道这件事是如何变得如此...闪闪发光答案出乎意料地不简单。这里有一些见解，使削减水晶和尼斯酒吧，我已经收集每当我的权力回来。

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"Crystal"—more literally known as Lead Glass—is over 1000 years old, and cut crystal is close behind. Crystal differs from standard glass in a few key ways, none totally doctrinal but all functionally important. Where a common drinking glass is largely composed of silica + sodium oxide + calcium oxide, "crystal" adds lead. This has been seen from Venice to the Czech Republic, ancient Rome to Edo era Japan. Unsurprisingly, different countries and practices differ on the minimum lead content that earns a "crystal" classification—as low as 2% by weight in the States and twelve times that in Europe. Crystal drinkware generally contains 18-35% lead, and it goes even higher if the piece isn't for mouth use... but I'm not drinking out of crystal statues today, so we'll ignore those. 

“水晶”--更确切地说是铅玻璃--已经有1000多年的历史了，切割水晶紧随其后。水晶与标准玻璃在几个关键方面不同，没有完全理论上的不同，但功能上都很重要。普通饮用玻璃杯主要由二氧化硅+氧化钠+氧化钙组成，而“水晶”则添加了铅。从威尼斯到捷克共和国，从古罗马到江户时代的日本，都可以看到这一点。不出所料，不同的国家和做法在获得“水晶”分类的最低铅含量上存在差异-在美国低至2%重量，在欧洲是12倍。水晶饮具通常含有18-35%的铅，如果不是用于口腔使用，铅含量甚至更高。但我今天不喝水晶雕像的酒所以我们就忽略这些吧

Czech style faceting

捷克风格饰面

Overall, lead oxide and antimony are added in significant amounts because they allow a softer glass body, which makes deft shaping and cutting less difficult and less likely to blind the artisans with brittle chips. They also increase material clarity and heighten refraction of light, which is an important feature in good glassware that becomes amplified with facet cutting. Higher lead content also reduces viscosity, making the material more elastic and easier to work with at lower temperatures than standard glass. The possibility of lower working temps also means ability to eliminate air bubbles and other imperfections while melting and forming, which has helped build crystal's reputation as a flawless and pristine material. 

总的来说，氧化铅和锑的添加量很大，因为它们允许更软的玻璃体，这使得灵巧的成型和切割变得不那么困难，也不太可能用易碎的芯片蒙蔽工匠。它们还增加了材料的清晰度和提高光的折射，这是一个重要的特点，在良好的玻璃器皿，成为放大与刻面切割。更高的铅含量也降低了粘度，使材料更有弹性，更容易在比标准玻璃更低的温度下使用。较低的工作温度也意味着能够在熔化和成型时消除气泡和其他缺陷，这有助于建立水晶作为完美无瑕和原始材料的声誉。

To make the crystal itself, the silica, antimony, lead oxide and any other chemical variants are melted together over the course of a day. Broken pieces of crystal are often blended in to help smooth the consistency and reduce waste. Once melted, the glass is kept temperature controlled in batches that correspond to output. 

为了制造晶体本身，二氧化硅，锑，氧化铅和任何其他化学变体在一天的时间内熔化在一起。破碎的水晶碎片通常被混合在一起，以帮助平滑的一致性和减少浪费。一旦熔化，玻璃保持温度控制在对应于输出的批次。

That brings us to the second key component of fine drinkin' crystal—it's almost never produced strictly by mold. Despite using molds for generic glass production for centuries, and tons of technological advances in the last 50 years alone, crystal is traditionally hand crafted, and most mid- to high-end companies still hand blow their pieces. Nearly each piece still passes through the hands of several skilled blowers and formers. This is where it starts to get fancy and expensive.

这让我们想到了第二个关键的组成部分，即优质饮用水晶，它几乎从来没有严格地由模具生产。尽管几个世纪以来使用模具生产普通玻璃，仅在过去50年中就取得了大量的技术进步，但水晶传统上是手工制作的，大多数中高端公司仍然手工吹制他们的作品。几乎每一件作品仍然通过几个熟练的吹制和成型的手。这就是它开始变得花哨和昂贵的地方。

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Whether stemware or a stouter cup, a crystal glass will usually start as a taffy-like blob daubed around the end of a blowing tube. It's inflated carefully, spun and shaped to spec inside a custom wooden mould, aided by a team of glass technicians. 

无论是高脚杯还是更结实的杯子，水晶杯通常都是从一个像太妃糖一样的斑点开始，涂在吹制管的末端。在一组玻璃技术人员的帮助下，它在一个定制的木制模具中仔细充气、旋转和成形。

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After the piece is blown, molded, hand formed, and its tube is removed, it is ready to be cleaned and patterned. Even this step is largely done by humans, cleaned individually and marked freehand by craftsmen with an intimate knowledge and eye for the patterns used. The marking is sometimes a direct representation of cuts to be made, and sometimes it's a guiding framework for more delicate and organic designs. 

后件是吹，成型，手形成，其管被删除，它是准备清洗和图案。即使是这一步，也主要是由人类完成的，由具有专业知识和对所用图案有独到见解的工匠单独清洁和徒手标记。标记有时是要进行的切割的直接表示，有时它是更精致和有机设计的指导框架。

The cutting is the hardest thing to understand, from a modern production standpoint. Despite the prevalence of lasers, automation and etching fluids, most crystal companies still use just two kinds of cut, applied by hand with simple rotary diamond cutters. At heart, cut designs are all variations on a flat facet or a beveled cut, created by either round or angled cutters. Much like lapidary and gem cutting work, the enormous diversity of crystal patterns boils down to the size of the tools and the skilled "vocabulary" of the craftspeople using them. 

从现代生产的角度来看，切割是最难理解的事情。尽管激光、自动化和蚀刻液的普及，大多数晶体公司仍然只使用两种切割方法，即用简单的旋转金刚石切割机手工切割。从本质上讲，切割设计都是由圆形或成角刀具创建的平面或斜面切割的变化。就像宝石和宝石切割工作一样，水晶图案的巨大多样性归结为工具的大小和使用它们的工匠的熟练“词汇”。

What do you know! We're from Toronto!

The Waterford Company uses a mix of techniques at its famous Irish factory. In the tourist video above you can get a sense of the labor intensive blowing, and improbably steady hands, behind their perfect looking glass. You can also get a gander at irrationally patient craftspeople who can keep focus on their work while entertaining smalltalk from friendly Canadians.

沃特福德公司在其著名的爱尔兰工厂使用多种技术。在上面的旅游视频中，你可以感受到劳动密集型的吹气，以及在完美的玻璃后面不可思议的稳定的手。你也可以看看那些不理性的耐心工匠，他们可以一边专注于自己的工作，一边和友好的加拿大人闲聊。

Satsuma Kiriko pattern

萨摩桐子模式

Edo Kiriko pattern

江户桐子模式

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Japanese cut crystal also dates back several hundred years, but some of the most striking and lasting styles became famous during the Edo period of the 1800s. Delicate cups for tea and sake feature similar bevel and groove type cutting with a distinctive set of tonal patterns that pull from textile design and natural motifs. 

日本切割水晶的历史也可以追溯到几百年前，但一些最引人注目、最持久的风格在1800年代的江户时代就闻名了。精致的茶杯和清酒功能类似的斜面和凹槽型切割与一套独特的色调模式，从纺织品设计和自然图案拉。

This video shows the Edo era practice of two-color crystal cutting, called Kiriko or Satsuma Kiriko. The level of detail in this is… a bit boggling. The design is super nuanced, and you can start to forget that behind every cut is just one guy holding a glass bowl. 

这段视频展示了江户时代的双色水晶切割实践，称为Kiriko或Satsuma Kiriko。这里面的细节...有点令人难以置信设计是超级细致入微，你可以开始忘记，背后的每一个削减只是一个家伙拿着一个玻璃碗。

Look up Kiriko on YouTube if you're having a bad day.

This next video, the longest and most self-congratulatory I found, goes more in depth into Czech methods, both traditional and modern. Start at 2:25 for actual glass action. 

下一个视频是我发现的最长、最自我祝贺的视频，它更深入地介绍了捷克的传统和现代方法。从2点25分开始实际的玻璃行动。

Long, but if you've got a downed tree blocking your driveway it's a soothing watch

.

While cut crystal might seem like an over the top indulgence left over from a Hapsburgian era where wealth was hereditary and no one cared about drinking lead—cough—the practice is a little practical. Food and drink, particularly liquors and wines, are enjoyed with all the senses, and adding light and depth to the drink glass can heighten the drinker's awareness of the drink's colors and qualities. While it's not as literally impactful as a wine decanter, a cut crystal glass changes the perception of what's being enjoyed.

虽然切割水晶看起来像是哈布斯堡时代遗留下来的一种过度放纵，在那个时代，财富是世袭的，没有人关心喝铅咳--这种做法有点实际。食物和饮料，特别是烈酒和葡萄酒，是用所有感官享受的，在饮料杯中增加光线和深度可以提高饮酒者对饮料颜色和质量的认识。虽然它不像一个葡萄酒醒酒器那样有影响力，但一个切割的水晶玻璃杯改变了人们对所享受的东西的看法。

Common version of a Waterford design

Today a

lot

of standard barware copies traditional cut crystal patterns. Standard glass is often machine cut to pretty convincing effect. From faceted bases on tumblers to the simple "manly" Waterford grid used on rocks glasses, crystal designs are reproduced in standard glass using molds and forming. Generally, the nicer the quality of glass and the nicer the quality of the mold, the closer to "crystal" it'll look.

今天，

许多

标准的酒吧复制传统的切割水晶图案。标准玻璃通常是机器切割的，效果相当逼真。从玻璃杯上的刻面底座到岩石玻璃上使用的简单的“男子气概”沃特福德网格，水晶设计都是使用模具和成型在标准玻璃中复制的。一般来说，玻璃的质量越好，模具的质量越好，它看起来就越接近“水晶”。

To see if the fancy set you picked up at Goodwill (or snuck out of your parents' prized liquor cabinet) has real crystal in it, look for extra sharp corners on the cuts and precise tight-radius definition of facets. Thanks to its lead, crystal is also comparatively heavy and gives a long ringing note when dinged by a fingernail or silverware. For comparison, your IKEA water cups give a thunkier standard glass tone, and cheaper glass throws a lot less light into and through your drink. 

要想知道你在Goodwill买的那一套（或者从你父母珍贵的酒柜里偷出来的）是否有真实的水晶，就要在切割上寻找额外的尖角和精确的小平面半径。由于它的铅，水晶也相对较重，并给出了一个长期的铃声时，用指甲或银器。相比之下，你的宜家水杯给一个thunkier标准玻璃色调，和便宜的玻璃扔到你的饮料和通过少得多的光。

Regardless of leadedness or cutting pedigree, a satisfying glass is a great companion. Stay safe and stay warm! 

无论是铅或削减血统，一个令人满意的玻璃是一个伟大的伴侣。保持安全和温暖！