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I have 20 years of professional experience fabricating borosilicate with a torch in the exact fashion of scientific glass, and I have taken several classes at C

I have 20 years of professional experience fabricating borosilicate with a torch in the exact fashion of scientific glass, and I have taken several classes at Corning and am familiar with the museum. I am quite familiar with precisely how all of that apparatus is constructed. The most recent 3-D printing with glass I have read about creates a piece of fused silica, which is even harder to fabricate and more useful in lab work. They print it from a silica infused polymer, and then each section is fused with the laser, and the polymer burns away, leaving quartz. Seems quite workable to me. This was covered in an article published recently. edit: one article that gives a good overview: https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=15114 https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=15114 a more consumery article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/you-can-now-3d-print-glass-180962951/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/you-can-now-3d-pri...

thereisnospork 8y ago
Do you know if anyone has gotten that or a similar process to a commercialy viable level? Truly 3d customizable glassware is something I'd definitely be wanting to order at some point in the future.
- namibj 8y ago
  If it's the necessary precision for requiring only minimal grinding to get norm fittings and the glass part of vacuum tubes, that would indeed be great. There are still things best done with tubes, and in some ways tubes are much better than transistors if it comes to reliability, mostly related to the sheer physical size preventing as-trivial cases of ESD/EMP fried LNAs in radios. Or the HF switch selecting between antennas and RX/TX. But this is probably a minor concern in practice.
  - code_duck 8y ago
    There are computer aided processes that can manufacture items such as that - things that can be made an a lathe. Such machines are very expensive at this point, however, such as the equipment made by Herbert Arnold of Germany which runs well over 100k. I would love to see some lightweight, less specialized automation in this niche, as what currently exists are heavy duty CNC class machines. They are impractically expensive and overqualified for projects like 20g tubes of glass with one end closed and a ridge.
- code_duck 8y ago
  Not yet, but with the intensity of research and progress on 3-4 different techniques, I think it's just a matter of time.

thereisnospork 8y ago

Do you know if anyone has gotten that or a similar process to a commercialy viable level? Truly 3d customizable glassware is something I'd definitely be wanting to order at some point in the future.

namibj 8y ago
If it's the necessary precision for requiring only minimal grinding to get norm fittings and the glass part of vacuum tubes, that would indeed be great. There are still things best done with tubes, and in some ways tubes are much better than transistors if it comes to reliability, mostly related to the sheer physical size preventing as-trivial cases of ESD/EMP fried LNAs in radios. Or the HF switch selecting between antennas and RX/TX. But this is probably a minor concern in practice.
- code_duck 8y ago
  There are computer aided processes that can manufacture items such as that - things that can be made an a lathe. Such machines are very expensive at this point, however, such as the equipment made by Herbert Arnold of Germany which runs well over 100k. I would love to see some lightweight, less specialized automation in this niche, as what currently exists are heavy duty CNC class machines. They are impractically expensive and overqualified for projects like 20g tubes of glass with one end closed and a ridge.
code_duck 8y ago
Not yet, but with the intensity of research and progress on 3-4 different techniques, I think it's just a matter of time.