art and science, craft and engineering

March 15, 2019 10:29 AM

The art of scientific glassblowing, by Gayle Price at the University of Leicester

A Scientific Glassblower at Yale Explains the Art of His Craft

Forging a future for glassblowing
Carrying a Torch for Scientific Glassblowing

posted by the man of twists and turns (5 comments total)

Scientific glassblowing is the best. I didn't get any exposure even to small glassblowing jobs, but then I spent a year in a European lab and they had a station there for small jobs. The post-doc who trained me on it told me he didn't always like research, but at least glassblowing always worked, and you could always fix a mistake. I grew to quite like it and it's one of the things I really miss about that lab.

I don't think I've quite got the dexterity for it but it's a job I'd love to have.
posted by invokeuse at 11:13 AM on March 15, 2019

Scientific glassblowing previously
posted by TedW at 12:14 PM on March 15, 2019

As someone who bailed on academia, being a scientific glass blower (producing custom glass for sci research) has been a retirement fantasy for me.

For anyone interested in exploring working with glass; get yourself a decent set of eye-protection.

A cheap propane hand-torch and cheap flint glass pipettes are good resources to practicing glass-working.
posted by porpoise at 9:06 PM on March 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

My father tried to teach me this, because it was the sort of thing he'd learned when he was a PhD student (even though none of them would really need to do it for their job at that point in history), and I'm still embarrassed/regretful that I didn't really take him up on it.

...what with, y'know, the younger me apparently being an ignorant ass. Again. Where's my time machine dammit?
posted by aramaic at 9:29 PM on March 15, 2019

Man that must be a fun job. Solving the puzzle of what configuration will suit the requirements, interacting with such a variety of subjects, making something beautiful with your hands and breath.
posted by lucidium at 4:01 PM on March 16, 2019