Uranium glass

I make furniture in wood and metal. Never worked glass before.

There's a technique I'm keen to try which involves insetting "jewels" of glass into forged ironwork. You work the iron, hot-punch a hole into it maybe 1/2" across then fill it with a rough piece of scrap glass. Some work with an oxy-acetylene torch and some hammering and it's held in place. Contraction as the iron cools holds it in place.

Now I assume that the way to learn to do this is just to do it, make some rubbish and then work the details out for myself.

Now the complication. I have some scrap uranium glass here, the green vaseline sort that fluoresces under UV. Any advice on working that, by the above technique ? Is there a significant toxicity hazard to working uranium glass with a handheld torch ?

I have two benches, one with fume extract and one without, and another bench that's in a real chem lab fume cupboard. Is it worth going for one of the fume-extracting ones, or just do it in the open ? (one is

50 miles away, the other is 200)

Thanks for any advice !

-- Do whales have krillfiles ?

Reply to
Andy Dingley
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Reply to
Michele Blank

I will disagree with this, partly because of the size of the lumps and partly because of the configuration. Iron contracts more than glass as the temperature drops. Depending on the amount of iron and the tightness of the fit, the heating of the iron will probably produce enough heat around the glass that smaller pieces of glass will survive the trip. On the other hand, I think you should have your glass checked. I believe newer uranium glass is made with depleted uranium oxide (U-235 removed) while older stuff was made with raw ore material and may produce different results when heated.

Reply to
Mike Firth

From what I've seen of this technique, it takes a little practice to get it right. You work it in _cold_ iron, heating the glass alone. Enough heat gets into the iron to expand it a little, then shrink it on cooling to lock things into place. The edges might spall a little, but it shouldn't crack.

The uranium glass is old, so it's presumably natural 0.7% U235 (just how much uranium (all isotopes) is in this stuff anyway ?)

-- Do whales have krillfiles ?

Reply to
Andy Dingley

There's no chemical and darned little physical difference between the different isotopes of uranium--that's why it's so expensive to separate. I don't think there'll be any difference because of that. Of course, I are not a chemist (or an English teacher).

Mike Beede

Reply to
Mike Beede

The studies done on Vaseline glass for the Fenton Art Glass factory document that background radiation was greater than that given off by the glass.

Mike Beede

Reply to
Henry Halem

Agree - little or no chemical or physical difference. Usually separated by weight as a gas. However, depleted uranium oxide is what is left over when the U-235 (used in making bombs) is removed and the U-238, which is much less radioactive, and other isotopes remain. Per one site found in a Google search uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.51 billion years uranium-235 has a half-life of 0.71 billion years the difference in time means radiation is much less for equal numbers of molecules (which is usually not true) of U-238 vs U-235. If actual old uranium glass has been tested, then that's that.

Reply to
Mike Firth

Not much This site

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has general commentsThis site
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says " aparticular colour of yellow-green glass that is made by adding 2% uraniumdioxide "

Reply to
Mike Firth

Glad to see you say that... I have about 40 lbs of it that I'm planning on gradually working up into beads, I was a little concerned. That pretty much agrees with what my small research has turned up, which is that it was the mixers who were exposed to dangerous levels of uranium, and the blowers were pretty safe. As glassworkers go, anyway. I'd love for anyone to throw more info out there, though.

-Kalera

Reply to
Kalera Stratton

Here's the web site of a guy that makes Uranium/Vaseline sheet glass. It looks like some of his products strike colors when fused.

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Reply to
C Ryman

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