Update! After listening to the observations from people with far more experience I think the experiment will end here and I do NOT recommend recreating this experiment. It seems that while it could be fine with controlled parameters or with a gas burner, the imprecise nature of a fuel like wood creates the opportunity for overloading and the design calibration of distance to fuel should not be relied upon. I was perhaps leaning too much on the 90 minute fire rating from the manufacturer which was well documented but I have seen too many last minute substitutions for materials that appear the same and the cheaper manufacturers documentation was less convincing. I am still curious about the parameters of a glass “explosion” and please weigh in with additional insights!
The larger fire pit test looked very attractive - enough to warrant the expense of the bricks. But you're going to drop this project? Because of the concern of the bricks exploding? I would really like to see a finished solution because the look is quite stunning.
If heat is your concern, why not keep the glass bricks from getting to hot? It wouldn’t be easy but if you could water cool the inside to keep the temp lower. Essentially a thin waterfall on the inside wall.
Annealed glass shouldn't have enough internal stress to explode. If it isn't, the cooling cycle as a fire pit will be too short to anneal them yourself and they will definitely go boom. If you observe any chipping at the edge, concoidial (wave) type fracturing is an indication that it is just normal glass (maybe boro) and not tempered, tempered will not tolerate chipping. Tempered glass can be dangerous in fire, it is under tremendous stress from diferential cooling (they blow air on it which causes the surface to "shrink" the main bulk cools slower and pulls that surface so the edge is very sensitive and under high stress) fire will accentuate that being on one side. You just need the "right" glass for it and you'll be fine, something like annealed borosilicate ideally but sodium glass is probably fine. Near all glass is annealed and tempered in someway or another. It's like baking, the same dozen ingredients could fill a recipe book based on the various combinations of them vs time and temp.
I'm watching you cut them now and split it, they are as soft as glass comes. They probably cooled down for several days if not longer in the heat treatment. They won't explode. They may crack if one side is tremendously hot suddenly (like a torch) with the rest cold. It has such a mass, the temp differential won't we extreme. It isn't a thin section bottle that cannot be evenly heated outside an oven. It is a brick.
For the final product, make sure you leave gaps in the bottom course to allow air to come in under the fire. You'll get far less soot if the fire can breathe well. That's how those popular smokeless fire pit things work.
I was thinking the same, or even a buried air vent to bring the fresh up right up under the fire. I was also wondering if there would be a way to control the direction of fresh air to focus/contain the heat in the center and up, and therefore less on the glass?
@@IAmKyleBrown Yeah, the simplest method would be to get a 8-10ft length of electrical conduit and a pipe bender. Put a short 90deg bend on the end of several 2ft lengths and lay them so that they bring air straight up through the middle. Too easy. Occasionally you'd need to clean out the pipes but that should take all of about 30 seconds with a flexible stiff bristle brush.
That concept was stunning! I think the second larger fire pit also made it so that more air could get into the fire from the side causing it to not smoke/soot as much, so you got a trifecta of "clean" brick. Potentially it could be enhanced further by combining the mesh you used on the first prototype, by adding in that and leaving some gaps between the bricks on the first layer that the mesh is resting on it would allow even more air to get to the fire from below and making the fire smoke even less by burning more cleanly and maybe even more lively. But that could maybe also make the fire burn hotter causing more bricks to crack...
A few thoughts on using glass: 1) more heat/cooling cycles might impact glass stability longer term, 2) if the glass ever gets “glowing” hot it can damage your eyes, 3) agree with using hextal, a museum quality epoxy. You can use diamond pads followed with polishing compound. Looks Awesome!
so friggin cool that you're experimenting with these. love fire pit #2 and all the different techniques you're trying with these beyond what's in the title
Probably not an issue for your climate but what would happen if it was hot and then it rained, would that make it crack more? and it would be good to see a temp reading of the outside of the glass after the fires been on awhile compared to brick. My gut tells me the glass would be a lot hotter.
1. This is called thermal shock, and how well a glass handles it depends on composition of ingredients. Look at typical glass dining ware and glass bakeware or laboratory glass, the reason the latter can handle temperature and shock is due to their composition of added ingredients. Thermal shock will be problematic, considering you're taking the temperatures of flame-licked glass and temperatures of rain and producing a very wide temperature swing in many pinpoint areas with decently high frequency. 2. Certain materials can be difficult within different spectra, glass is a bit of a mixed bag with IR. For example, greenhouses allow IR into them for heating purposes, but certain blends of glass will be reflective with thermal imaging. Though reflectivity can also be problematic, such as with metals giving inaccurate readings due to their mirror-like qualities within the IR spectrum. Doing this is honestly a waste of time and effort. Maybe you can get something off the soot but that's also going to be an insulative layer of different properties, so it's still a waste of time then. 3. Heat of the material depends on various thermal properties and where you're actually measuring. Surface temp will obvious be hotter than external, but what's important is how the material resists the heat or conducts it. This also circles back to the first point and how material quality handles heat stress. Assuming the blend itself can survive heat, it should be fine for this application, as long a you're not building it directly around the fire. The optimal design for this would more than likely be a shallow interior pit, a secondary glass wall, and that glass wall being topped with typical brick/stone with overhang on both the interior and exterior edges, with a protective cover for the glass when not in use and for weathering purposes.
when you build the fire pit put the grate on the second or third course and take out a brick or two below the grate to allow for better air flow and less soot.
I just watched a channel who ran her glass for a month as an experiment a viewer suggested, and it came out looking much more like actual sea glass than her normal runs. You should give it a try.
A suggestion for your fire pits, leave brick sized openings in the bottom row to allow combustion air under the grate. A 1/4” (pencil diameter) air gap between bricks will allow expansion and additional combustion air. Expensive yet interesting concept. A bit of ash on a damp cloth will remove smoke from glass and protect your laundry. Thanks for sharing this insightful video. Wishing you a great week.
Hi Ben. I'm a long time subscriber of the channel, and i must say that your last two videos are some of the best youtube content i've ever watched. Your channel is one of the reasons why i think youtube is an amazing tool. Congratulations and thank you so much for sharing.
Lovely stuff! It might be worth trying to shape airflow also, in order to control soot. As to polishing/shaping, I've seen some great results on other channels with MDF wheels impregnated with honing compound: MDF can be shaped to suit the application, and has enough give and thermal mass to it that it doesn't chip the glass, but is firm enough to drag the compound against any high spots with the right amount of force.
Borosilicate (pyrex) would work better but is probably not available or if it were it wouldn't be cheap, also high borosilicate glass usually has coefficients of expansion as tungsten. The green in the glass is usually from iron contamination. It could easily be a completely different formulation of glass than the clear bricks. Think of glass as kind of like steel in that various formulations have different properties. To that it might be worth putting a layer of some other kind of glass between the bricks and the fire as a thermal buffer or some composite of clear materials.
Love your curiosity and experimental process, This plus outreach (& links) to Weston are really helpful. Few tangential thoughts… ▪combat soot with fire contained away from walls AND either several layers of opaque block rising above glass or location with adequate wind-block; ▪cheaper glass block… clear epoxy pour into block molds with broken safety glass (likely free and breaks into marble-sized cubes).
I am a lampworker of 20+ years. That glass powder is EXTREMELY damaging to your lungs if inhaled. A respirator would be a great idea. If you do any drilling or grinding on glass it is imperative that you keep ALL the powder wet. Also, clean up before it dries. And I would wear an apron and remove immediately after, straight to the washer. Our hobbies can be dangerous to our health.
Ohhh, love it! I have been experimenting with this material for table lamps(the smokey ones), I made a few to gift this winter, overall loving it, seeing so many possibilities.
Having a shaving ad while watching you with a beard is amusing. That being said, I don't think anyone is going to complain about your outfit during the ad. 😉
5:27 Absolutely beautiful at night! If our material science improves and we could further refine Aluminium oxynitride or a better alternative I would love a fireplace like this. Perhaps a round one. Would’ve loved to see your final design come together.
I think it looked really cool if you had a water feature that would be almost like a fountain that would drip down the sides.. This could be a fire and ice effect and would help keep the bricks cool.
It might be nice to incorporate lights behind the frosted glass pieces. I think it would lend a rather soothing feel if it were incorporated into some sort of floor lighting.
With the small pieces you could make and LED glass bowl...with the LEDs on the bottom then put the tumbled frosted pieces on top. Probably look pretty neat.
This is amazing. I love these kinds of glass bricks, and also love that art-deco style and you're going for. Thanks for making this video, very inspiring. Really want to build something with glass bricks some day
Ages ago I made a small fountain out of a small batch of sea glass I made. It looked really great, and I wonder what you could do like that with the larger pieces.
I bet you would have better luck with borosilicate glass if there were bricks of that available. That's the type of glass we use on 3d printer beds. Might be fun to learn to mold your own bricks.
Very cool. I'm curious how this will play out in in the long run. We have a lot of experience on our farm with regular brick and cement fireplaces and find that they always start cracking eventually and the thing needs to be rebuilt every few years no matter what sort of high temperature mortar we use. We even used refractory cement that's meant to line the insides of metal smelting furnaces and even that started cracking eventually. This looks really cool though!
with that seaglass "beach" you could set up the super waterproof led strips (with individually changeable leds) and set up a glowy rock garden or lounge area. crush up most so its about an inch to 2 so it doesnt hurt to walk on it. idk i thought itd be cool
Just when I thought you had used all possible materials, you change it up on us. Also.... pretty good sneaking the six pack shot into the ad! (LOL) I did a quick search for pyrex bricks but found none... but they would give you the heat resistance for the fire for sure... that's why they make crack pipes out of it.
Use a bowl shaped container in the center of the pit to focus the fire and keep it in place. You might lose a layer or two of light on bricks, but you can just add those on to make it up on top, or even use regular bricks on the first few courses to match up the the steel wok center
I’m curious if a clear acrylic rod would disappear when using that epoxy? You could potentially use that to join the bricks invisibly. Although acrylic and heat don’t go well together.
Gets pretty cold where you at at night i have heard and seems like its still cold in the morning buy what your where. Glass only really crack with extreme temperature change. Im sure ya know. Idk how that can be managed but its needed. Keeping the blocks from cooling down to fast.
It’s a cool look for sure I’m impressed there wasn’t more breakage I would probably for with a fire pit kit from someone like Firegear they offer these brass burners that will give u a beautiful and controlled fire that will not leave the same amount of sut bonus is u can place any broken glass bricks into the panel to cover up the burners or u can contrast the whole thing and use lava rock If u insist on a wood burning I would still build some sort of burner space almost like a pizza pan with low walls and holes on the bottom ALSO in the for pit itself I would leave holes to allow air to circulate
For less soot, you might try for cleaner burning woods. Cedar, for example, burns very dirty and creates a lot of soot. Other woods with less sap ar likely to burn cleaner and leave less soot deposits. As for the glass, it would be interesting to see if you can get some made from Corningware/Pyrex. Those would hold up to extreme temperature changes much better. They would probably also cost a lot more. Fun experiments! Thanks for sharing!
So awesome! I love hearing about all of your design projects. I miss the Modern Maker Podcast, cuz you guys would always throw ideas around. Glad to see you're still innovating! You ever get around to making that taco shop in Joshua Tree?
For the broken pieces turned to seaglass, why not turn it into an indoor crystal fireplace? The ones that are gas powered? I have seen ones with small glass, but I have not seen ones with bigger crystal glass. Mix the frosted ones with clearer ones for a unique effect.
If you build air channels into the outer moat of your masonry separator, you can eliminate the soot entirely. Also, when drilling and cutting, if you leave the glass completely submerged in water you will greatly reduce the chance of breaking.
Another thing you couls do to improve efficiency to reduce smoke and to reduce the temperature of the blocks is run a air supply under the pit walls to provide oxygen for a secondary burn ala the smokeless firepit builds. Depending on where you place them it could also create a air curtain effect.
With the glass it's uniform heating and cooling is the key to keep not cracking.. How is the fire pit going manage the latter part? Did any crack in the larger pit
glass tends to go boom due to sudden temperature swings or if heated and constrained. Unlikely solid blocks of such mass would explode, but will probably crack with time. (full disclosure sis not watch yet), so long as they aren't tempered. Tempered glass is already a bomb waiting to go off. Greatest hazard would be sudden rain on hot bricks. Adding in some air channels to create smokeless type design could help with cooling.
Excellent video! Love how you talked about your thought process and what you learned. Did you think about using gas (natural or propane) to avoid the soot issue?
Next time try to submerge your glass workpiece in water. Water makes huge difference and it will not break very easily 👍 Younger I used to make pipes etc from cool bottles with a bucket of water and some bottles 😊
Use the glass blocks as none meting ice blocks in a big bowl of punch.... Just freeze them and make a big bowl of ice cold punch...it will sure look great and keep your frink cool
For the Firepit reducing the smoke and therefore the black soot buildup; I was going to recommend talking to a friend of yours (or at least someone who built with you? Don't know how RU-vid Maker Friendships work); Brad of Fix This Build That and his video about making his firepit smokeless. While I doubt he's an expert; he probably can give some pointers and tips on reducing the smoke/increasing the airflow.
@housemademodern great video man. Quick question does the glass stain after a while kinda like a chimney? If so, how do you prevent that I know cleaning obviously. But would distancing the fire a good idea as well I mean I’m just worried about the maintenance.
It's expensive, but i would be really interested to see what you could do with heat reactive paint and these bricks. Im not sure if those types of paints/coatings can survive the heat from a fire, but I'd be interested to find out.
I wonder if you would have the same results with the first one if you had used the smokeless method. You would have to dig a little tunnel for air to enter from below and to the side of the pit. I would imagine the bricks would have been cleaner, but I wonder if you would have cracking like you did.
Run the glass firepit for while, and then spray lightly with a hose to simulate the onset of a rainstorm. Does it become a health/safety hazard or not? Serious question -- not trolling.
