During our visit to Ireland, we visited the House of Waterford Crystal and enjoyed a factory tour learning about how crystal is made. The process is fascinating, time-consuming and involves furnaces functioning at 1300 degrees celsius! Moulds are carved by hand from beech and pear wood:
The moulds are used to shape crystal and the master blowers (who train for five years and have to go on to study even further if they are to be allowed to do all the other jobs in the factory) transform glowing balls of molten crystal into elegant shapes:
Blowing the glass:
There are six stages of production, which include taking the edges off the glass:
Then lines are drawn on the glass to show the engravers where to cut:
Engravers then cut along these marks:
Some of the finished pieces were stunning:
The whole process of making the crystal glasses, vases and other objects is time-consuming and done by hand. The use of furnaces is mentioned many times in the Bible: Proverbs 17:3 says ‘The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart.’ God says His refining is done through the ‘furnace of affliction’ (Is 48:10); the furnace is sometimes used as a metaphor for hell (see Matt 13:42-50, for example). At Waterford, there are no ‘seconds’, for if a piece is failed at any of the six stages of inspection, the glass is simply broken and thrown back into the furnace to start again. Similarly, God is able to take all our ‘broken, shattered pieces’ and make of them something more beautiful than we could ever imagine. (‘Long Live the King’, Aaron Shust) The time and painstaking care which goes into every piece of Waterford crystal is nothing compared to the work God is doing in each one of us, creating unique testimonies to His grace and power which cannot be valued in earthly currencies at all. Let’s be grateful for the work of the Almighty in each one of us!