Short video about a scientific glassware maker

[Video Link] Etsy created this short documentary about glassblower Kiva Ford. He makes custom scientific glassware for research and discovery chemistry. He's a member of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society. "We make some pretty wild stuff," he says. "Extractors, Reactors, condensors, custom flasks -- and it can't be made by a machine or mass produced." Handmade Portraits: Kiva Ford

• [schmittenhammer]

  My friend is a scientific glassblower for Kent State University, has some pretty interesting stories. Used to be a bench chemist.

• [kpkpkp]

  VIMEO!!! Y U No Pre-Cache!

• [schmittenhammer]

  Wow, this guy’s art is totally amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!………..

• [xtalman]

  Glass blowers are worth there weight in gold. Our glass blower here is always busy and wishes he would have time to do the artistic stuff.

• [Anonymous]

  I got to visit the custom glassworks lab at Savannah River Plant way back in ’88. I was most impressed with the glass springs that were made for high precision scales. Unlike metal, glass springs always return to their initial position unless broken or heated to high temperatures. NEAT! Also, I really want to buy the heart in a jar, but sadly, there is only the paypal option. We don’t use paypal in our politically aware household.

• [daen]

  These guys are like golddust! At the pharma company where I used to work, when the guy who had been the glassblower retired, a black market basically started up in his stuff because it was so good – the new guy just didn’t have the knack – his stoppers didn’t seal properly, or the flow rates were uneven. And it’s beautiful stuff.

• [Lucifer]

  pretty amazing… I can’t imagine the time it takes to develop the right precise “feel” for the glass to get so much control over it. His art pieces are awesome.

• [Anonymous]

  If you live in the NY metro area, this guy sometimes does workshops at the Jersey City Art School: http://www.jcartschool.com/html/classes/wworkshops.html

• [jimboo]

  Amazing, yes, but … I’m living presently in Bangkok. A soxhlet extractor costs $400 from Fischer; I got mine here for $25. $15 for the ground glass joints to be imported, $10 for the local glassblower guy to make up the rest. Along with a nice RB flask, it’s currently sitting on top of a stereo speaker filled with twinkling Christmas lights. Looks great, is same-same, how am I ever going to explain this to Customs??

• [Mr. Protocol]

  It’s those wonderful blue cobalt glasses that I lust after. The ones that eliminate the sodium glare.

• [hostile17]

  He seems kinda cute to me. Hot glassblowers…. hmm…

• [Mark Crummett]

  I love listening to artists and craftspeople talk about their work.

• [satiredun]

  Funny, since Etsy recently banned all glass pipes from their stores, therefore forcing glassblowers to sell elsewhere.

• [CliffStoll]

  The eyeglasses aren’t cobalt blue; they’re Didymium glass, which blocks a narrow range of yellow light. This lets you see the hot glass through the glare of the bright yellow sodium ions.

  Art glass usually is done freehand, while scientific glassblowing often relies on a glass lathe.

  Scientific glass work generally relies on borosilicate (Pyrex) glass. Borosilicates are less likely to crack when heated in one place, due to their lower coefficient of thermal expansion. Glass artists prefer soda-lime — it’s available in many colors, melts at a lower temperature, and is easier to work by hand.

• [Anonymous]

  I believe glass is not actually a solid. And this like the artist mentions is due to its crystalline structure, Glass is actually a supercooled liquid.

  Just a pet peeve if an expert (which he clearly is) sometimes misspeaks and usually it is just to appease an audience, but still never assume the audience doesn’t know what is being talked about.

  I believe Feynman used to get pissed off at this as well….?

  • [Anonymous]

    If glass weren’t a solid, all our major space-based telescopes would have been completely inoperable in six months.

  • [Bill Barth]

    http://dwb4.unl.edu/Chem/CHEM869A/CHEM869ALinks/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html

    Glass is a solid. It’s an amorphous solid, but it’s a solid. It reacts elastically to applied forces and does not deform continuously under shear. They are not crystalline, but that doesn’t make them liquids, though they do share many microscopic similarities with them.

    • [flytch]

      glass IS a solid at room temp.. HOWEVER.. when you put in under a torch it is then A LIQUID!!!
      come on Bill, clearly you have never blown glass!!! I have… it twists your view point of what it is and that is what his is talking about here… he works with liquids “like honey” in his hands… those liquids those who work with what he produces works with solids…