Re: [ATM] re: Glass Blank

[Dominic-Luc Webb <dlwebb@canit.se>]

>     It is not so much of a container problem as it is a furnace problem.
> There are several stainless steels which will stand up to the 1400 degree C
> required for a glass mould. There are a lot of Alumina bricks that will too.
> The big problem is using as much of the heat available from burning the
> wood.

I tried concrete mold with a concrete lid, but it was quite small (6"
diameter) and only an experiment on a camping trip. The test material was
beer bottles. Without a huge effort, we certainly got over the vitrification
point. The only fuel was wood and this was blown with air rather well.
Inspection on the following day after digging up the buried mold
revealed rather well melted glass, but nothing fused. I do not think
I got much above the vitrification point. I immediately recognized there
is no such thing as too much insulation. Further, the amount of wood we
went through was enough to earn us a major beating from the local
tree-hugging environmentalists. You may want to warn your neighbors about
the amount of smoke. They might otherwise opt to contact the local fire
department (seriously). I could guess that for a larger piece of glass
you can easily go through a few cubic meters of wood. Because you need to
release the energy quickly, as by blowing, that is plenty of wood burning
up to look like one or more homes on fire.

Final analysis: I think this can be done, if one puts a bit of
ENERGY into it (hee, hee, get the pun?)...

Dominic-Luc Webb

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