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How do stained glass companies make stained glass “colored glass”

Modern glass making is an extremely refined process. Glass is made basically from silica sand, limestone and soda ash. The mixture is put into a glass furnace and heated to approximately 3000° F, until the raw materials melt into a liquid which can be formed into glass sheets. To color the glass, various metal oxides are added to the raw materials during the glass making operation. These include selenium or gold for red, yellow and pink; cobalt for blue and sulfur for amber. The final price of the glass is most evident when purchasing hot colors like (red, yellow, orange, pink) as gold and selenium are expensive ingredients.  The next factor when making glass is the process of rolling a texture onto the surface of the stained glass as it soft.  Textures will then become a cost factor over a non textured glass.  Many glass companies in the USA have been around for over 50 years.  Some over 100 years.  While the process of machine made colored glass verses hand mixed colored glass is basically the same the hand rolled or mixed process requires labor and will be a cost factor.  Nickates Stained Glass Inc is a stocking distributor of  6 stained glass companies in the USA.  We stock only those colors unique and different from each company giving our inventory a mix of colors.  We are not interested in carrying say  shades of red from every company with every texture they make.  We can special order in some cases from stained glass companies in the USA when we re order.  Please call for special glass orders.