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How to Melt Glass ? (Read 2076 times)
johan
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How to Melt Glass ?
Dec 22nd, 2015 at 2:30pm
 
Is there anyone in here who has melted glass?

I have some thin glass bottles and want to make a thick block of glass so i can knap or grind a knife out of.

Also what temperature is needed and how fast should i increase and decrease it so it doesnt break?
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Masiakasaurus
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #1 - Dec 22nd, 2015 at 4:54pm
 
You will need a kiln to heat and cool the glass controllably. You also have to know that all of the glass you're melting has the same composition, otherwise you're never going to get them to meld together. (But you won't need to completely melt it.) What you want to do is called glass fusing. My sister is a professional artist and art teacher at a glass and ceramics workshop and sells fused glass art at music festivals. It's a lot of effort just to knap a bottle.
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Pikåru wrote on Nov 19th, 2013 at 6:59pm:
Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all. 
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Bill Skinner
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #2 - Dec 22nd, 2015 at 8:21pm
 
If you want to knap glass, use the bottom of the bottle, the larger the bottle, the better, usually.

Glass doesn't make a very good ax, it's too brittle.  You would be better off finding one of Larry Kinsalla's video on pecking and grinding an ax head.

Try Paleoplanet, he used to have several how to videos posted there.
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johan
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #3 - Dec 23rd, 2015 at 5:27am
 
The glass bottles were for wine and they have conical bottoms...
Also i have a lot of tabasco little bottles.I surely can make arrow heads but i want to try to make a knife .
And if i can melt glass i will be able to recycle chips or broken glass.
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Bill Skinner
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #4 - Dec 23rd, 2015 at 12:08pm
 
Well, you can melt glass in a roaring bonfire but the problem will come in when the fire cools, usually you have to let glass cool pretty slowly or it cracks.

I, personally, do not like to knap glass or obsidion, when you get a flake or sliver in your hand, it turns invisible and you have to feel for it with the point of something sharp to dig it out.  It hurts even more each time the tip touches it.  And you must dig it out, due to the shape of the flake, it will keep going deeper until it hits bone or come out the other side of your finger.  Hasn't happened to me (I dug them out) but I know a couple of knappers who had it happen to them.

If you can find an old dump, bleach and pickles used to come in gallon jars, they have very thick bottoms and work well for making a knife blade.  Old toilet tanks and TV screens are good for providing material.  Both are around 1/2 inch (12mm) thick.

You do know that most "arrowheads" that people find are usually either dart points or small knife blades?  Most knife blades were 4 inches (10cm) or less.
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Masiakasaurus
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #5 - Dec 23rd, 2015 at 8:32pm
 
The wine bottles and Tabasco bottles likely will not fuse together.
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Pikåru wrote on Nov 19th, 2013 at 6:59pm:
Massi - WTF? It's called a sling. You use it to throw rocks farther and faster than you could otherwise. That's all. 
~Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily avialable, they will create their own problems.~
WWW elsabio04  
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Mauro Fiorentini
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Re: How to Melt Glass ?
Reply #6 - Dec 26th, 2015 at 7:50pm
 
Hallo, some years ago I was at the university, busy trying to melt glass, but with months of efforts all I got was a single glass bead, made out of the bottom of a beer bottle.
I used a common Bunsen burner like this one:
...
plus a pair of long thongs to hold the glass and a small iron toothpick-style tool I made to pierce and manipulate the glass.

Melting the glass itself is not really difficult, but what I couldn't do was mixing two different pieces together.

I even tried melting some glass mosaic tiles I found on a Roman archaeological site I worked in, because their glass was supposed to be much more pure than our, but these small squares were all cracked after so long time under the ground, and with a lot of bubbles, so I couldn't do anything with them.
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