Is it Possible to create an object out of solid Glass where inside; there is a stainless steel object?

Question

Am an Artist and thinking of an idea of creating such thing. I need professional opinion. The Glass will be surrounding the Stainless Steel object from all sides?
Thanks

Answer 1

Absolutley. Hand made glass objects are "blown". Solid glass rods are heated over burners and the softened glass is worked into shape. As long as the object that is being put inside the glass won't melt, it can be surrounded in glass.

Answer 2

well worth little or no so a methods as i'm worried. It has an relatively unfavourable co effective of warmth, isn't undemanding to lubricate to maintain the nutrition from sticking and will advance a warm spot easily. My decision is a strong high quality forged iron, that's heavy yet conducts warmth properly and spreads it calmly. Stainless with copper bottoms is marginal for boiling water whether it does clean easily. There are countless alloys on the industry that are usable as cook dinner ware. Aluminum is worse than stainless. Of the organic metals, copper is the perfect conductor of warmth, forged iron is my decision, spun steel does artwork. wish this permits. by no ability wash forged iron cookware with cleansing soap and water.

Answer 3

Yes, if it's small enough and/or there is enough temperature control over the finished piece.

Glass and steel in contact can be fatal as the steel expands more than glass with heat and causes internal strains which can crack or even shatter the glass.

Low expansion glass like pyrex borosilicate glass will be the safest to use.

Low expansion ceramics, like Zerodur which has almost zero expansion and is used for making telescope mirrors instead of using pyrex glass, can be coated with aluminium or other metals like gold, chromium etc, and then hard silica coated, both done in a vaccuum sputtering process which will make an object that looks all metal.

Zerodur is normally supplied in blocks requiring machining, hence casting isn't possible since it is already fired by the manufacturer.

It might be possible though to get the un-fired product if you can find a supplier, which would make extraordinary sculptures possible as you'll see by the constructional detail of some of the objects in the links.

Here is a large ceramic mirror for a telescope, coated wth gold the same way as above, but with a much higher surface accuracy than is needed for visual smoothness of a sculpture or similar art piece. This one cost megabucks.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.schott.com/magazine/images/si104_01_zerodur.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.schott.com/advanced_optics/english/projects/exploring_space.html&usg=___WKfc3oiuYdq8xHT4I_3h3uKp7Y=&h=160&w=270&sz=14&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=h5ZaU0PMb4TwjM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=215&ei=s7f9TevGGIyLswavzcXyDQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dceramic%2Bzerodur%2Bmirror%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1004%26bih%3D616%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divnsb&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=746&vpy=288&dur=1813&hovh=128&hovw=216&tx=119&ty=94&page=1&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0&biw=1004&bih=616 . . . . .

http://www.pulleshanique.com/02_zerodur.htm . . .

Small coated Zerodur object for a science application...who would know by looking at it?

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lambdaphoto.co.uk/images/optics/asf.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.lambdaphoto.co.uk/products/110.600&usg=__BFbKM8XZHofVOH33EDbb2zmKwfY=&h=153&w=230&sz=9&hl=en&start=52&zoom=1&tbnid=6nYGLjHjhbVZDM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=184&ei=s7f9TevGGIyLswavzcXyDQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dceramic%2Bzerodur%2Bmirror%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1004%26bih%3D616%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=230&page=5&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:52&tx=139&ty=87 . . . .



The large glass block on your other Q (thanks for the response, what a world, making things eh?) could be made with blocks surrounding a central one cast to enclose the steel.

It will require making flat enough surfaces for the joins which takes a lot (a l_o_t) of work to avoid optical distortions.

You won't need anything like the accuracy required for an optical flat for a telescope or coelostat ( a mirror system that follows the Sun's path to provide a reflected beam into a fixed telescope or other instrument).

The 10" flat in the second link would give most folks nightmares. 4" is bad enough.

To fix the blocks together a transparent cement or resin can be used as in compound lenses, and with care a lot of work could be avoided by having the cement or resin, which is the same refractive index as glass, fill the gaps where flatness isn't great and making them just disappear.

The joys of matching refractive indices....

Be very careful about small bubbles though, which takes care to avoid when making microscope slides the same way with a thin glass cover slip half an inch across to protect the specimen.

You won't need this but you get the idea. Flattening glass is very hard to do well and takes a long time

http://www.astrosurf.com/jwisn/diagonal.htm . . . .

http://www.loptics.com/ATM/mirror_making/four_flats/four_flats.html . . . .



An alternative is a glass tank filled with water containing lead salts to increase the refractive index and give the appearance of looking through solid glass.

It has the advantage of thick flat glass panels being availble up to a few inches thick including armoured glasses ( at a high cost) and with optically good surfaces.

Silicon and other bonding agents are easy to find and to use for those, but the joins will need sorting to make the object look like a block of solid glass instead of joined panels.

Whichever way it's done it's an expensive project.

Have fun....

Answer 4

Of course. The melting point for steel is usually about 1200 centigrade. Most lead based glass goes amorphic at 800 centigrade. However, soda-lime glass melts at a higher temperature than iron. Shouldn't be a problem if you do it with the correct glass. Though I'd imagine it would be simpler to do it in a clear plastic instead, though the diffraction would be different.



From Wikipedia on lead glass:

The addition of lead oxide to potash glass also reduces its viscosity, rendering it more fluid than ordinary soda glass above softening temperature (about 600 °C), with a working point of 800 °C. The viscosity of glass varies radically with temperature, but that of lead glass is roughly 100 times less than that of ordinary soda glasses across working temperature ranges (up to 1100 °C).

Answer 5

Have you never seen glass paper weights with coins etc. inside them ???



I suggest you Google 'images' for 'glass coin paperweight' (see link for example)

Answer 6

Yes it is possible.

Answer 7

yes ..should be nice