[PA-NJ Glassblowers] New Jersey's Salem Community College - Glassblowing Program Trains Students To Craft Tools For Science
Tony Patti
gaffer at glassblower.info
Sun Sep 25 21:35:57 EDT 2016
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/25/495173426/glassblowing-program-trains-students
-to-craft-tools-for-science
Some cutting-edging science today relies on the centuries-old art of
glassblowing.
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/09/23/img_6903_slide-d107431a02c6c5d838
920d3b2792b11187fbca51-s800-c85.jpg
Leah Prevost, 21, works on a glass coil condenser at Salem Community
College's Glass Education Center in Alloway, NJ.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
When researchers in chemistry, physics and medicine need special glass tools
for complex experiments, they sometimes sit down with a glassblower to
sketch out designs for customized beakers, flasks and condenser coils.
New Jersey's Salem Community College is trying to keep that tradition going
with the country's only degree program in scientific glassblowing. Housed
among corn and soybean fields about an hour south of Philadelphia,
<http://www.salemcc.edu/glass/> the school's Glass Education Center in
Alloway, N.J., specializes in one of the most popular materials in a
research lab.
"It's clear. You can see what the experiments are doing. It holds no
chemical history. And it can be shaped into any form you like," explains
Dennis Briening, the instructional chair of the college's two-year
scientific glass technology program. "Whatever your imagination is, it can
be made."
https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/09/23/img_6800-a447df4f122209e4bec8ae3
e06087431f8e74652-s1200.jpg
Neil Messinger holds a glass bubble condenser he created and a foam ear plug
in his hand for size comparison.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
His students learn how to make tools for research universities and glass
manufacturers at workbenches across a row of glowing furnaces. As they blow
into glass tubes, they hover over bright orange flames that reach as high as
5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot enough for those stiff tubes to bend
like rubbery taffy and twist into candy-cane shapes or snake coils that look
machine-made.
This is a craft with exacting requirements from scientists. Any mistakes in
the glass could cause accidents and ruin an experiment.
"I always say a millimeter to a glassblower is a mile," says Briening, who
has had to create glassware while holding a tolerance of one-thousandth of
an inch. That's thinner than human hair, which is about two- to
three-thousandth of an inch.
Besides patience with blueprints, the school's glassblowing students have to
learn the basics of organic chemistry and computer drafting so, as Briening
explains, they have a fuller understanding of how their glassware can be
used. Over the past four years, the program has more than doubled its
enrollment to now more than 100 students.
They're carrying on a tradition of scientific glassblowing that took off in
the U.S. after imports of glassware from Germany was stemmed by World War I.
Many students today are drawn to the program after catching what some call
the "glass bug."
"Glass as a material is so captivating. It starts as a solid. You put it in
fire. Everybody loves fire. And then it melts, and it's a liquid," explains
Katie Severance, who graduated with an associate degree from the program and
now teaches scientific glassblowing at the school. "It's like a beautiful
dance, working with the material, getting to know it."
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/09/23/img_6775-fa1c8163c15f085048ac491c
306092f9ff61568f-s800-c85.jpg
Neil Messinger, 23, a second-year student in Salem Community College's
scientific glass technology program, uses a glass lathe to turn a bottle in
Alloway, NJ.
Hansi Lo Wang/NPR
Neil Messinger started the program after studying glassblowing as a studio
art and marketing student at The Ohio State University.
"It's fulfilling to me in the sense that I'm using my two hands to create
something. I just love tangible objects, being able to say and hold
something, like, 'I made this,' " says Messinger, after he gently pushes air
into a glass bottle with a blow hose while gripping a blow torch in his
right hand.
In between scientific glassblowing classes, he's already working for a
company that makes glass parts used for gas chromatography. But he says he
eventually he wants to make glass tools for labs working on cancer research.
"My mother, she had a bout with breast cancer. And I just don't want people
to have to go through that," he says. "I feel like in this day and age,
cancer is something that shouldn't be heard of."
One day, he hopes, cancer patients won't have to sit through radiation.
After he graduates in the spring, he says maybe his scientific glassblowing
can play some small part in making that day come sooner.
Tony Patti
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<mailto:gaffer at glassblower.info> gaffer at glassblower.info
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