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Fused Quartz Tube: Blown from Brazil Pebble in the Oxy-Gas Flame (Shenstone, 1916)
W. A. Shenstone · Public domain
Charlie

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Charlie

4. novembre 2026DE
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Fused Quartz Tube: Blown from Brazil Pebble in the Oxy-Gas Flame (Shenstone, 1916)

Fused silica stands sudden heating and cooling that would crack glass, but natural quartz splinters violently in a flame. W. A. Shenstone, in The Methods of Glass-Blowing and of Working Silica in the Oxy-Gas Flame (1916), first turns Brazil pebble into a "non-splintering" silica by quenching it from a yellow-red heat, then melts it in an oxy-gas flame into fine rods, wraps the rods round a platinum core into a first tube, and enlarges it with rings of rod blown out. Not given: quantities and times. He advises most workers to start from bought tubes and to learn each stage by practice. Source: W. A. Shenstone (1916), pp. 88-94. Picture: his p. 93.
Avanzato
Several days of practice

Istruzioni

1

Read Shenstone

"The silica tubes thus made can be cut and broken like glass, they can be joined together before the flame, and they can also be drawn into smaller tubes when softened by heat."
2

Crack the Brazil pebble

Clean the chips of Brazil pebble (rock crystal) thoroughly, heat them in boiling water and drop them into cold water. Repeat until they have cracked enough to break easily with a clean steel pestle or hammer. Hand-pick the fragments and reject any that are not perfectly free from foreign matter.

Materiali per questo passaggio:

Cristallo di roccaCristallo di rocca1 as required
AcquaAcqua1 as required

Strumenti necessari:

Casseruola altaCasseruola alta
Piastra riscaldantePiastra riscaldante
SecchioSecchio
Martello a penna sfericaMartello a penna sferica
3

Make it non-splintering

Heat the pure, transparent pieces to a yellow-red heat in a covered platinum dish in a muffle furnace and plunge them quickly into a deep clean vessel of distilled water. Repeat until they are semi-opaque, friable masses like white enamel. Wash them with distilled water, drain and dry. Now they can go straight into the hottest part of the flame without splintering.

Materiali per questo passaggio:

Acqua distillataAcqua distillata1 as required

Strumenti necessari:

Capsula di platinoCapsula di platino
Forno a muffolaForno a muffola
Tenaglia per crogioloTenaglia per crogiolo
Becher di vetroBecher di vetro
4

Set up the flame

Use an efficient oxy-gas burner fed with coal gas and oxygen from a bottle fitted with a gauge and regulator; watch the oxygen used. Protect your eyes with very dark glasses, so dark that work is a little difficult at first, and keep a second pair for long spells, as the glasses get hot. The hottest spot is near the tip of the inner cone: bring the work exactly there.

Materiali per questo passaggio:

Gas di carbon fossileGas di carbon fossile1 as required
OssigenoOssigeno1 as required

Strumenti necessari:

Cannello ossigeno-gas illuminanteCannello ossigeno-gas illuminante
Bombola di gas in pressioneBombola di gas in pressione
Riduttore di pressioneRiduttore di pressione
ManometroManometro
Occhiali scuri da forgiaOcchiali scuri da forgia
5

Draw fine rods

Hold a fragment in platinum-tipped forceps and melt one corner. Press a second fragment against the melted part until they stick, and heat from below upwards (to avoid bubbles) until it is clear. Add a third, a fourth and so on until you have an irregular rod. Reheat it in sections and draw it out into rods or coarse threads 1 to 2 mm across.

Strumenti necessari:

Pinza con punte di platinoPinza con punte di platino
Cannello ossigeno-gas illuminanteCannello ossigeno-gas illuminante
Occhiali scuri da forgiaOcchiali scuri da forgia
6

Make the first tube

Bind a few rods round a platinum rod about 1 mm across with platinum wires at both ends. Withdraw the core slightly from one end and heat gradually from there until a rough tube 4 to 5 cm long has formed. Close one end, blow it into a small bulb, fix a silica rod to the far end of the bulb, reheat and draw it out into a fine tube. Blow a fresh bulb on one end and draw it out again, until the tube is 6 to 8 cm long.

Strumenti necessari:

Filo di platinoFilo di platino
Pinza con punte di platinoPinza con punte di platino
Cannello ossigeno-gas illuminanteCannello ossigeno-gas illuminante
Occhiali scuri da forgiaOcchiali scuri da forgia
7

Blow without soiling it

Blow through a rubber tube on the open end of the silica tube, with a glass tube loosely packed with granulated potash between your mouth and the work so the inside stays clean. Do not take a hot bulb out of the flame to blow it; move it just off the hot spot. Mend holes with plastic silica from the softened end of a fine rod and blow the lump out. Keep the silica clean: a white crust that forms is removed by reheating, but dust or handling can spoil the surface for good.

Strumenti necessari:

Tubo di gommaTubo di gomma
Tubo di vetroTubo di vetro
Carbonato di potassio (potassa)Carbonato di potassio (potassa)
Cannello ossigeno-gas illuminanteCannello ossigeno-gas illuminante
8

Enlarge and lengthen

To widen a bulb into a tube, lay a ring of fine rod round its end, heat the ring and the end until soft and blow; repeat until the bulb becomes a short tube. For a long tube make several pieces 200 to 250 mm long at the diameter you need and join them end to end. Thicken a tube by adding rings and blowing them out. For a large tube, set a plate of silica behind the work to throw the flame back onto its far side.

Strumenti necessari:

Cannello ossigeno-gas illuminanteCannello ossigeno-gas illuminante
Pinza con punte di platinoPinza con punte di platino
Occhiali scuri da forgiaOcchiali scuri da forgia
9

History and honest limits

Thorpe's Dictionary (vol. IV, 1913) records Gaudin spinning fused silica threads in 1839, Boys making quartz fibres in 1887, and Shenstone showing in 1901 how to make tubes and bulbs before the oxy-coal-gas blowpipe. Shenstone gives no quantities or times and says most workers save time and money by starting from bought silica tubes. A finished tube holds a little moisture and nitric peroxide; he removes them by heating it and drawing filtered air through, not by washing.

Materiali

5

Strumenti richiesti

18

Questo progetto realizza

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Segnaposto

Tubo di quarzo fuso

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