forming a large diameter tube

Jun 08, 2009 5 Replies
P

I was thinking about how to slump a large diameter tube from a flat plane of glass. I have little experience with glass working and dont know to what degree this is workable...



You'd take a piece of float glass, from like a window and slump it over a ceramic tube you made/found as a form. Put it in the kiln and let it soften and after its really gooy pull it out for a second and use poles to roll the hanging edges together. The maybe flip it so the seam is on top and put it back in the kiln.



?

Is this at all how you would form a large diameter tube from found resources? What size kiln do glass workers usually have; what is the widest sheet i might be able to work? can it be anealed in the same kiln it was slumped in?



thanks!


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C

kiln workers wouldn't do this. tubes are blown out in a glory hole. you can take a flat piece, heat it in a glory hole, and use the technique called 'roll-up' to make it into a tube, but again, that would require blowing experience.

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D

I'm no expert but I have seen pictures of large tube shaped parts slumped from flat. The parts had a length maybe 5 times, from memory, greater than the diameter, so what you require may be possible without the roll up technique. The roll up sounds like the reverse of the old tcchnique for producing flat glass where a cylinder was blown and split an unrolled to form a flat sheet.

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N

Good luck. With a lot of practice you might pull it off. Most likely you will wind up with a big mess and some burns.

No, I would either blow it (not likely to be called a tube), have it blown, or buy it from a lab glass manufacturer.

I have a 3x5' and a 4x8' but I wouldn't even try to slump a tube.

Yes.

Jack

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L

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a video how big tubes are made.Slumping over ceramics: The glass contracts more than ceramics whilecooling, so it will break or at least press itself permanently around the ceramics. Steel tube with a separator is better.

-lauri

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