Scientific glassblowing is considerably different from what one thinks of as glassblowing. Visions of Venetian masters working with long blowpipes, dipping into glowing furnaces of molten glass... not. We work from preformed tubing and other shapes made of borosilicate "Pyrex" glass, which we buy from larger manufacturers such as Corning, Kimble, and Schott.

Lawrence Berkeley Lab 1963 - Photo courtesy Tom Orr

We use glass working lathes to make seals, shrink or enlarge tubing, form shapes, and tool fittings and flanges. Follow the link to see a 3+ minute video of a flange being tooled in a glass lathe.

The glassblowing lathe is different from a machine or wood lathe in that both the headstock and tailstock are driven synchronously. And the basic process is fundamentally different as well. Whereas traditional machining is subtractive (ie material is cut away and removed), scientific glassblowing requires that the hot glass be redistributed. This presents challenges for numerically controlled, automated equipment, as the feedback loop necessary for this redistribution has proven difficult to perform quickly. Any complexity in the glass compounds this scenario significantly. This means that unless you need to make 10,000 parts or more, a skilled glassblower is still better than a machine. 

Our processes are best thought of as a combination of thermal forming and welding: we can heat larger amounts of glass to make changes in the general shape of the glass, and heat smaller areas to fuse tubes and components together. We use welding torches and other larger torch configurations, with oxygen and gas or hydrogen for fuel. "Blowing" is certainly one of the techniques, as is sucking, spinning, slumping, etc.

Large diameter glass tubing requires Larger lathes and burners

Winding small diameter tubing using a "ribbon"burner

...as well as CNC waterjet cutting. A high-pressure abrasive slurry cuts thru glass no problem. The 7.5" diameter discs shown at the right have been cut this way.

The disc shown in the upper left has been firepolished in an oven, and had the "tabs" lifted-up.

Laser cutting and drilling is possible in quartz, but problematic for borosilicate glass; borosilicate cannot withstand the thermal stresses produced by the process.

Pictured to the right is a 3"x4" quartz plate that has a series of wells ablated into the surface. The geometry of the wells is dictated by the configuration and power of the laser beam.