Chapter 121

Strictly speaking, glass does not melt. This strange substance can only be softened at high temperature to form a special state between liquid and solid, which is called glassy state.

It takes a certain temperature for the glass to reach the glassy state. However, the temperature is not fixed. It depends on the minerals in the glass.

Just like the lead glass of later generations, it only needs 500 degrees to begin to soften, while the softening temperature of pure quartz glass is as high as 1600 degrees.

However, most of the glass made by Europeans in this era is ordinary glass, so the stone bear estimates that it can be softened at about six or seven hundred degrees. After all, the temperature of the alcohol lamp used in future laboratories is only about 1000 degrees, but most of the glass can be softened with alcohol lamp.

Stone bear has no alcohol lamp, and no gas burner with higher temperature. He can only soften all the broken glass with the help of a crucible, and then use an iron tube to dip in the liquid glass to blow what he needs.

"The glass will soften later, and then I will blow some glassware I need with this iron pipe. Kuaima, I need you to give me a hand. " Taking advantage of the heating gap, the stone bear began to roll.

Kuaima nodded for sure.

"Later, when I start blowing glassware, you need to hold the bottom of the glassware with a heated tongs. At that time, the glass will have a certain adhesion with the tongs. At this time, you need to hold the bottom of the glassware slowly and evenly and pull it down. The speed should not be too fast, but it should not be too slow. It's about this speed." Stone bear said while holding the tongs in his hand, he made a downward movement.

"Do you understand?"

The horse nodded again. He took the tongs and made a gesture of lifting. Then he pulled down slowly and evenly as if holding something.

Although it's the first time to do this kind of action, but Kuaima does it very well. There's almost nothing to be picky about. Shi Xiong is very satisfied.

"You should practice this action more now. Don't get out of the glass after a while. You're flustered again." Stone bear light command way, the horse did not hesitate to carry out this order, with a tongs began to practice.

Stone bear took up a pair of tongs and a pair of iron scissors and handed them to hard bone, "after a while, you take this scissors to prepare. When I say to cut, you have to cut the glass I pulled out without stopping. You just need to cut the top of the bottle I blow out, but you need to hold the glass tube with a pair of tongs and then cut it, otherwise the glass tube will break when it falls to the ground. "

Seeing that hard bone didn't understand, stone bear explained it to him again as he drew. Until hard bone completely understood what he needed to do, stone bear sent him to practice like a fast horse.

"Finally, you must remember that the temperature of the softened glass is very high. You must not use any part of your body to directly touch the glass, otherwise you will burn some part of your body, or you will die!"

Shi Xiong's words are not alarmist. Once the glass begins to soften, it means that the temperature at this time is at least more than 600. This kind of temperature can't be carried by human body.

Because it is separated by a layer of crucible, the heating speed of glass is much slower than that of alcohol lamp.

However, no matter how slow it is, the broken glass begins to soften as the temperature in the crucible continues to rise. When all the broken glass softens and then begins to turn into a pool of glass, the stone bear knows it's time.

"All ready, I'm going to start blowing the glass. Don't panic. Just be normal."

Stone bear said, picked up the 1.2-meter-long thin iron pipe, dipped one end into the softened glass, then took a deep breath, put the other end of the iron pipe in his mouth, and began to blow continuously and steadily.

Blowing glass is not as easy as you think, and this kind of work is very dangerous.

Whether it is ancient or modern, only experienced people can do glass blowing, or when blowing glass, there must be an experienced person around to guide.

It takes strength to blow glass, because glass is not as simple as soapy water blowing bubbles, which requires strong vital capacity. In addition, when blowing the glass, enough pressure must be maintained in the mouth. Once the mouth feels exhausted, it is necessary to leave the blowing pipe immediately. Otherwise, the hot air pressure inside the glass will come out because of the pressure inside the just blown glass.

The hot air with the temperature as high as several hundred degrees can only be blown out along the blowpipe. If your mouth doesn't leave the blowpipe at this time, tut Tut, imagine the horror of hundreds of degrees of hot air coming into your mouth

Although Shi Xiong didn't blow the glass several times in his previous life, Mr. Wu told Shi Xiong a lot of glass blowing tips at that time.

As the stone bear slowly and evenly blows one breath into the blowpipe, several people are surprised to find that the glass that originally stuck to the other end of the blowpipe starts to swell.

When the shape of a small bottle is not in the middle of winter, the stone bear's other hand immediately makes an action against the fast horse. The fast horse immediately picks up the tongs that have been heating and catches the small bottle. Then as the stone bear turns the direction of the blowing pipe, the fast horse begins to pull the small bottle down slowly and evenly with the tongs.

As the small bottle continues to pull down, the mouth of the bottle is constantly elongated. Because at this time, the stone bear has been blowing, so under the action of gravity and tension, a slender glass tube began to take shape.

When the length of the glass tube reached about 20 cm, the stone bear made another gesture to the hard bone. The hard bone immediately picked up the big scissors and another pair of tongs that had been heated all the time, dragged the slender glass tube with tongs, and then cut two scissors at the bottle mouth and the end of the blow key with scissors.

The small glass bottle was cut off and held by Kuaima with tongs. The glass tube was also cut off and held in tongs.

The stone bear suddenly blew a breath, blew open the glass at the mouth of the pipe, then put down the pipe, looked at the glass pipe and the small bottle, nodded with satisfaction and said: "yes, yes, this time you did a very beautiful job. We're going to keep doing that! "

The guardian adult's praise made a few small followers smile and wait for the second glass blowing.

Second lieutenant Ferguson looked at the scene with great interest. He knew that many glassware were blown out, but how to blow it was the first time he saw it with his own eyes.

The glass has been heated in the crucible, so the next work of blowing small bottles and glass tubes is very smooth. Not long after, four round small bottles about the size of small medicine bottles and four glass tubes more than 20 cm long appeared in front of the stone bear.