Mark Lauckner artist in glass
Mayne Island Glass Foundry
Site-27 C-8 RR#1 Mayne Island, BC V0N 2J0 Canada

Antique Stove Castings

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Old wood cookstoves abandoned in ghost towns and farmsteads often contained beautiful ornate castings. These castings were both functional (as doors, vents and fittings) and decorative as trademark emblems and logos. They were almost always nickel or chrome plated, and were fastened with small bolts to the stove chassis or oven door.

One of my ongoing projects is to cast these old rusty bits of history in glass. There is something very pleasing about taking a rusty old iron casting and re-creating it in glass. Glass gives these castings a whole new life, as they can be appreciated in a way which was not possible as iron castings... being illuminated from behind.

These castings make an ideal feature panel for use in stone work around a fireplace or hearth.

The "Kootenay Range" oven door emblem

The resulting casting in 3/4" thick turquoise glass

Plans for these castings include windows, lighting and backlit coffeetables. Following are photos demonstrating the forming of the parts and the assembly of a 2 foot by 5 foot long coffeetable

The stove part is placed face-up inside a metal frame. Damp sand is packed around the part, vibrated and pressed until very firm. Then the frame containing the sand and stove part is flipped over. The metal stove part is carefully removed, and the resulting cavity in the sand is then coated in graphite and ready for filling with liquid glass. The sand is special "foundry" sand, composed of 4 different granule sizes. This enables the particles to pack much tighter then if all the sand grains were the same size. The result is a near mirror finish on the tamped sand, and then also on the resulting glass surface.

Detail of sand surface finish

Pouring the glass into the sand cavity.


Castings laid out inside table frame	Banding bent & welded	Grouting the castings in the banding


Finished top surface	Finished table with plate glass top and backlighting

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| Sand Cast Bowls | Mosaic Dishes & Bowls | Slugs |


The "Kootenay Range" oven door emblem	The resulting casting in 3/4" thick turquoise glass


Detail of sand surface finish	Pouring the glass into the sand cavity.