Spectacular show man. I always wondered who people make structures and furnitures out of quartz...and now this crystal-clear video is my good answer! Thank you for sharing the art of this handicraft!
Nevermind...found exact example I was looking for. BTW...obviously it can be melted down in furnaces, but I was implicitly referring to a non-industrial furnace.
As the tube melts, it begins to gather up and be cohesive and liquid, and collapse due to gravity if the machine isn't spinning fast enough. Puffs of air help mitigate the collapse.
Question(s) - how much hydrogen/oxygen (I'm guessing stoichiometric ratio) does that burner use? Or at least what kind of pressure does it need for a flame like that? And does the graphite rod stain the quartz when it touches it?
Specs available direct from Carlisle, the manufacturer of the torch- tho most pyros overclock them badly. My ear is telling me he's running 30psi oxy and 10 fuel LoL. this info is more easily gotten these days, many more glass artists working quartz to make apparati for marijuana concentrates. The graphite does not stick. It gets vaporized... sublimated, perhaps. He's probably got a quench can filled with water there that we don't see so that the tool can be cooled occasionally.
As he said you should use propane/butane/natural gas and not hydrogen for boro. You're heating it far too much and that forces air bubbles (sometimes called "seeds") in the glass.
sorry made a typo...not "who" but "how" hahaha. Nonetheless thanks again. I shall be standing-by for future crystal videos. Science in RU-vid makes me happy. So says, the Old and Youth.
You have to turn up your burner way up it needs to be lightsaber level hot , you'll only get a a couple seconds at ultra most to move any material or expand it , things need to be done in multiple heat up steps for the area your'e working .
HI! Great work your doing man... I tried to do some glass work on my own, specially fire polishing with hydrogen/oxygen. Whenever i finished my job, i get this nasty litte spots on the glass. looks like something shot at it, resulting in little holes. Maybe you can tell me what iam doing wrong... anyway nice vid.
acetylene is dirty and most things quartz would be used in would require very pure and clean flame, hydrogen is what is proper for majority of fused silica/ quartz work
Hello. I have a need to melt quartz and form it into a telescope mirror. Could you possible help me hash out a few technical details? I could email you a list of questions, show you the mold design, etc. I am a amateur and have no idea what I am doing with even normal glass blowing, but I NEED a telescope. I need it. :P Seriously though, I would like to turn this into a business, but I would like to make sure I have the technical knowledge to make any investment money go the distance. I'd really appreciate any help you can offer. Thank you.
I was attempting to get a baseline for the knowledge needed. I have already looked into facilities that could help train me (the size of the project would have required significant knowledge in operating a vacuum furnace) in operating the equipment needed. If need be, I could have gotten the general idea hashed out, found the required equipment, and simply hired someone with more knowledge to train me on the job. I did my research and found this out quite awhile ago. I had a plan. My initial plan had called for a mold which would expand to a predetermined size, and still match a specific curve profile at a very specific temp. Glass would fill the mold and be allowed to cool enough to the point it solidified, then the piece would be annealed. This would leave me with a piece requiring a significantly lower amount of polishing. Basically I was hoping to pull some space age shit. I then modified the plan when someone informed me it would be easier to simply melt the glass and press it into the mold. The size of the piece would make this difficult, but pieces of 5-6 inches in diameter are completely doable with amateur skill and off the shelf equipment, and a very expensive mold. These would still be extremely valuable, but I want to carry out the full size project. That will require extremely expensive equipment. And yes, training. It is hard. I was more than aware of that, and I will still attempt this one day, but for now, I am focusing on a cheaper project. Thanks for your input anyways. By the way, what kind of background do you have in working with quartz, vacuum furnaces, and optics?
As a glass worker reading through this comment thread I appreciated that you expanded your explanation into the research you have done. Which is quite a bit if you're new to the glass fabrication realm. What really got me is in the middle of this well spoken piece is the "Basically I was hoping to pull some space age shit." . Another words I L.O.L ed at that.
Luke stone "Are you entertained?! Are you not entertained?! Is this not why you are here!?" - Maximus lol Seriously though...I understand it's not a topic you pick up overnight. I am still going to attempt this, but I need the funds for all the equipment still. Currently building commercial software to generate income for all my side projects. Eventually I will also build a spaceship to get to mars too. I am kidding about that last one. :p
Are you sure he is using natural gas... methane is not usually used at all with manufacturing quartz. Propane or hydrogen is the go to. Methane burns in a much lower temperature. I’m very surprised to hear a reference to natural gas in this video
I think he’s using borosilicate tubing not quartz. He makes a reference to using a quartz rod to clean up the end of the tube and states that it’s borosilicate on the end of the quartz rod. Cool video, just saying
Idk, i think he was working quartz, simply because the flame was so white, and he had his (probably gold plated) face shield out for working that dinky 32mm tube. I work boro on a lathe that size and if it was boro you wouldn't feel that type of operation at your face..
![[Lab 13] Glassblowing Quartz](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
