Category: Society

By W. Joe Wheeler Editor’s note:  Joe Wheeler is a Scientific Glassblower and a member of the ASGS. At 90 years old, he is very possibly the oldest working scientific glassblower alive today. Almost every day he goes into his glass shop and creates projects of either scientific or artistic handblown glass. He started his career with glass in 1942 as a precision lens engraver for Bausch and Lomb Optical Company in Rochester, NY. In 1946, after 3 1/2 years in the U. S. Navy, he apprenticed for 4 years to Hans Blaessig, a German-trained glassblower. Hans was a hard taskmaster, but the glassworking techniques Joe learned stayed with him over the years. Additionally, he worked with scientists to design and create glassware at the University of Arkansas, Purdue University, Dow Chemical Company, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Hawaii, Litton Electron Devices, and Hughes Aircraft, Electron Tube Division. Who Was First? The earliest recorded use of glass was by the Egyptians who used it to glaze tiles, make figures, and create the earliest beads. Excavations place its first known use to be about 1500 BC (despite the claims of the philosopher Pliny, who stated in his journals that the Phoenicians discovered a glassy substance oozing from under their campfires in the first century AD). The Phoenicians used blocks of soda to support their cooking vessels and the combination of heat, sand, and soda is reported as evidence that they first discovered this magic material. Subsequent experiments to duplicate the Phoenician “discovery” have been unsuccessful. History shows that in the era around the time of the birth of Christ, given the combination of fire and Man’s imagination, civilization entered into an age where glass emerged as both a functional and decorative material. Who was the first to use this marvelous material? The answer is not as important as the varied uses that Man has devised to utilize it, for it certainly would be a different world without it! Whether by design, or perhaps by accident, Man found that if he combined sand with other materials and applied heat, he could fuse, or melt, this combination of materials and when they cooled, they held their shape and color. I prefer to link the first making of glass to the potter, who realized that by making a paste from sand and oil, then painting this glassy substance onto the surface of his beads, pots, and vessels before firing, it enhanced their beauty and opened up a new method of decorating his wares. Even today the potter uses a similar glaze to seal and beautify his pots. The ancient temples are rich in glazed tiles, adding not only color and design to the floors and walls but also creating a more durable surface that would resist wear from the sandaled feet of the worshipers. So effective was the use of these glazes that to this day, archaeologists are unearthing tiled floors that have the same sparkle and color as the day they Read More …

Glass and scientific advances have gone hand-in-hand throughout history. For centuries the knowledge and art of scientific glassblowers have been integral to the development of chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic and physics research. Some notable examples include Galileo’s thermometer, Edison’s light bulb, and the vacuum tubes of early radio, TV and computers. The qualities of glass and the skills of those who fashion it have contributed more recently to the advances in industries and research in fiber optics, lasers, atomic and subatomic particles, communications and semiconductors. While basic hand skills, lathes and torches are still indispensable in modern glass shops, computer assisted furnaces, diamond grinding and lapping machines, even lasers and ultra-sonic mills for precision shaping and boring have found their way into our realm. More and more shops are adding ISO certification to their list of qualifications. Fortune 500 companies, major universities and research institutes throughout the world rely on professional scientific glassblowers who have found the ASGS to be a crucial resource. Scientific glassblowers provide highly specialized glass apparatus for all universities with graduate research programs, government, private, and industry research laboratories, production facilities, the semiconductor industry, and many other aspects of scientific research. There are also many scientific glassblowers that use their skills to provide thousands of catalog glassware items for use by scientists throughout the world. These glass products range from making beakers and flasks to the production of highly specialized vacuum manifold systems, distillation, sublimation, and extraction apparatus. Each glass apparatus is designed and constructed by the scientific glassblower based on collaboration with individual researchers.

Don Gossard, Office ManagerASGS National Office 360 Oak AveSuite 140Eaton, CO 80615 Phone: 716-353-8062Fax: 866-880-3216Email National Office   Want ASGS news sent straight to your phone? 📲Text JOIN and your email address to (716) 558-9695 to subscribe to text updates today! National Officers President – Erich Moraine President Elect – Klaus Paris Secretary -Andy Gibbs Treasurer – Kevin Moeller Executive Secretary – Jerry Cloniger ASGS Section Directors Canadian – Craig Nagami Delaware Valley – Exhibitors – Dennis Wargo Great Lakes – Jill Korgemagi-Clark Midwest – Andy Gibb Northeast – Sean Donlon Pacific Northwest – Harold Lasswell Rocky Mountain – Garette Oakes Southeast – Rick Smith Southern California – Nathan Hart Southwest – Jim Cornell ASGS Committee Chairs Alan Brown Seminar – Kevin Teaford Audio Visual Audit – Patrick DeFlorio Awards – Steve Anderson Bylaws – Annalee pickett Elections International Liaison – Klaus Paris Information Technology – Erich Moraine Joseph Gregar Junior Member Workshop – Chris Bock Membership – Kate Jones Nominations – Erich Moraine Publications – Jim Hodgson Questions and Answers – Tracy Drier