Thread: working with glass questions

For working with thin glass rods etc LPG is more than adequate. One of those handheld turbo torches will be enough.

When I was a young fella I had a chemistry set with a little metho burner, this tiny flame was hot enough to bend 1/8" glass tubes and make pippettes.

We've got our own residential glassblower here in Bundy who operates out of the Schneider Cooperage. His workshop is open to the public so you can actually watch him making things.

There's a few fields of glassworking: Laboratory, Optical, Optometry, Ornamental etc . I've worked in the Optometry for a few years which is mostly done with abrasive grinding and then polishing.

If you are flame working glass then borosilicate (Pyrex) is easier to work than soda glass as it's much less prone to cracking as it has a lower thermal expansion coefficient than soda. An oxy-gas flame is handy to have rather than an air-gas torch.

There are two different classes of glass lathe depending on whether you're making lenses or making lab glassware, the lens lathe I used was made by Coburn in the States and basically had a diamond cup wheel mounted on the headstock of a specific diameter and you mounted the lens blank on a metal base with a low melt point alloy similar to Wood's metal and then it attached to something like the compound slide except it swung around an adjustable horizontal radius for the cup wheel to grind hollow. Lubrication was standard mixed up water soluble oil cutting fluid from Castrol.

Lab glass lathes have two spindles at opposite ends of the bed that rotate the same way to allow uniform flame heating of the object being blown or worked.

Plate glass ages and becomes harder to cut as it gets older which is why glaziers hate cutting old glass. If you are going to work plate glass then buy it new, apart from that, don't push hard on the glass cutter and don't go over your lines a second time with the cutter it only makes it harder to break along the scribed line. Finally you can cut thick plate by scribing a mark and then with the piece overhanging the table, rap the underside of the glass opposite the scribe mark with a ball pein hammer to break it.

If you have to glue two flat bits of glass together, there is a UV cure clear glue from Loctite: you put a few drops on the first piece on the tabletop, place the second on top of it, and this is the secret tricky opticians bit, you place a finger on top and move the top piece in a circular motion and all the bubbles move out to the edge leaving a nice clean join for the UV lamp to cure. This is how all the prescription lenses for scuba masks are attached to the mask.

Originally Posted by Graziano

There's a few fields of glassworking: Laboratory, Optical, Optometry, Ornamental etc . I've worked in the Optometry for a few years which is mostly done with abrasive grinding and then polishing.

If you are flame working glass then borosilicate (Pyrex) is easier to work than soda glass as it's much less prone to cracking as it has a lower thermal expansion coefficient than soda. An oxy-gas flame is handy to have rather than an air-gas torch.

There are two different classes of glass lathe depending on whether you're making lenses or making lab glassware, the lens lathe I used was made by Coburn in the States and basically had a diamond cup wheel mounted on the headstock of a specific diameter and you mounted the lens blank on a metal base with a low melt point alloy similar to Wood's metal and then it attached to something like the compound slide except it swung around an adjustable horizontal radius for the cup wheel to grind hollow. Lubrication was standard mixed up water soluble oil cutting fluid from Castrol.

Lab glass lathes have two spindles at opposite ends of the bed that rotate the same way to allow uniform flame heating of the object being blown or worked.

Plate glass ages and becomes harder to cut as it gets older which is why glaziers hate cutting old glass. If you are going to work plate glass then buy it new, apart from that, don't push hard on the glass cutter and don't go over your lines a second time with the cutter it only makes it harder to break along the scribed line. Finally you can cut thick plate by scribing a mark and then with the piece overhanging the table, rap the underside of the glass opposite the scribe mark with a ball pein hammer to break it.

If you have to glue two flat bits of glass together, there is a UV cure clear glue from Loctite: you put a few drops on the first piece on the tabletop, place the second on top of it, and this is the secret tricky opticians bit, you place a finger on top and move the top piece in a circular motion and all the bubbles move out to the edge leaving a nice clean join for the UV lamp to cure. This is how all the prescription lenses for scuba masks are attached to the mask.

im looking to just sort of play around with old bottles and the like and see what can be made i have ideas of tea lanterns and cups sort of the "craft " side of glass work anyway thanks for the help ill keep these things in mind and see what happens