JamesAkers , 4 days ago to random

I learned a bunch of #scientific #glass stuff attending the ASGS Symposium at Salem Community College last week.

I learned a bunch about Quartz glass! AKA Fused Silica- its glass without any fluxes- just super pure silica! Its needed for #Semiconductor production and one of the US symposium sponsors is using Chips act funds to be there (they are trying to triple their glassblowers in 10 years).

Quartz is so weird to work with- it sublimes (goes from solid to gas) and leaves behind vaporous quartz as white haze around the area worked. In a semiconductor environment you would use hydrogen fed torches and gloves with Hydrofluoric acid washes in between operations! The #hydrogen is like a hot laserbeam flame. #Quartz wont ever boil, stops moving quickly and is almost impervious to thermal stress

Glass knowledge wasn't the only thing I picked up though- my body also picked up some #COVID I just discovered #Monsterdon .Time to stay home :)

#science #handmade #scientificglass #newjersey

Bob Singer making a quartz device that his company makes for oil or gas testing. He uses a fresh clean graphite rod or another quartz rod as his tools to avoid impurities. Welding shades protect the eyes from the intense UV coming off the hot quartz,
filling in cuts in a quartz rod and using a quartz and graphite roller wheel to smooth them out. The challenge is to fill the cuts cleanly and without any bubbles. I could get it clean- but there were so many bubbles. In industry, rods like this would make big racks to hold hundreds of silicon wafers for production
The inside of a Wheeler diffusion pump that a presenter made in an an afternoon. This would then get sleeved inside another tube to make the pump. The glass flares and tubes in tubes create an extreme evaporative action that boosts high vacuum pumping speeds and help you reach even lower pressures.