The use of ornamental objects and of domestic job of glass goes back at a few millenniums b.C.

It was initially a vitreous pasta, opaque, which only later was made transparent.

The first melting pot kilns used for the glass fusion, except for a few technological improvements, are, in the conception, like those still today adopted.

In Venice (Murano), where glass art started with continuity in the sixth b.C. century, taken to inheritance by the populations, who were running away from the barbaric invasions;

The kilns were initially of circular dome plant, containing 3 shelves.

With the naphta and methane coming, the kiln has been reduced at a plan containing the melting pot at the level of the floor, which, once, was used to burn the wood.

Today the third floor, called "grecolo", where the objects worked were put back for a new cooking, is replaced from suitable tempered kilns or muffle kilns.

Therefore Venice and Murano are an indissoluble binomial, which is the home of glass from further one thousand years.

But where does the glass spout from?

What is the true source of the glass?

It's I.V.R.A. DUE Ltd., company of Murano specialized in the production of refractary materials for glassworks.

From over 60 years melting pots, rings, keys and each materials for the kilns building leave from I.V.R.A. DUE to supply the glassworks of all the world.

The professionalism in the production, the punctuality in the deliveries, the quality of the used material are the requirements, which do I.V.R.A. DUE a leading company in the sector and are guarantee of efficienty and seriuosness.

But we analyse as a melting pot is produced:

A wooden floor is covered by a refractory meal distributed uniformly on all the surface;

(this operation allows melting pot a desiccation and retirement homogeneous during the drying of his massa avoiding so the possible internal cracks and little tension formation)

So one passes to the bottom formation spouting some mass, whose amount will be proportional to the melting pot to be produced; at this point the question arises spontaneous: what are the determining factors for the realization of a good melting pot?

The first thing to be considered is an attempt selection on the clay in relation to her chemical composition; the clay is mixed with chamotte and water considering that the mixture percents and the granulometry of the components are based above all on an acquired experience.

So the obtained mix is left to rest for about two/three months in order to improve the plasticity and therefore will be wiredrawed in a removing gas machine, before to be used, to remove the contained air inside.

It will become so more homogeneous and compact ready to be used for the production of rings and melting pots.

I.V.R.A. DUE uses for his production Gross almerode clay, because discovers fundamental requirements like high resistance to the heat that will be reached at the moment of the fusion and, considered his chemist-physics composition, allowes there are only tracks of polluting Fe2O3 and helting Ca OMg ONa2O K2O.

Now melting pot worker (he's unknown figure to the greater part of people but his ability can be compared to a glazier teacher, because both come from the ancient Murano culture and tradition) raises wall of melting pot which must be elaborated in a single piece from the floor to the wall and it ensures to a melting pot monolithic structure.

With quick and skilled actions, the melting pot worker works the clay blending the various cutway pieces.

The piece moulding is completed ensuring the precision of diameter, and the length and the width of the oval melting pot is garanteed inside woody moulds, after having been covered by cotton stoles in order to avoid attaching to the wood of the melting pot wall, in formation. Besides giving the form of piece, the woody mould must absorb the blows of hammer, which melting pot worker arranges to raise the wall and to reduce therefore the thickness from the original 150 mm to the final 70-80 mm.

As for the bottom, also the wall thickness will be proportional to the capacity of the piece.

It is interesting to remark that the work of melting pot worker, is an ancient art; the same tools used (the hammer, the woody crosses, the so called 'mushroom', a little characteristic hammer, have been handed down from father to son for generations and generations and are unobtainable on the market and then, they also are built by hand on specific instructions of the same melting pot workers.

When the wall is raised and ended, the melting pot worker lightly moistens the surface of the same wall and of the bottom to be able then to polish and to finish the melting pot interior.

When, at last, the mould and the stoles of cotton are removed and the outside also of melting pot is finished and smothed, the same is numbered, dated, initialed and covered with jute sacks and dried in air-conditioned rooms until 8 months.

In this case, also the drying time is related to the melting pot size: jute sacks are used to dry the wall because, being wallthichkness smaller than wallthichkness of the bottom, covering it with sacks, the wall drying is slackened, supporting a homogeneous drying between the bottom and wall.

Therefore, in the expressly dedicated room, follows a seasoning period, whose duration can last 4 months for the helting-pots of remarkable dimensions.

So I.V.R.A.DUE, having a wide disposal of products, is able to deliver the already seasoned melting pots;

It allows the glass-works to use the required melting pots immediately.