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Comment by code_duck | Hacker News Reader

That's exactly the problem they're facing. Since the market for low end work has been removed, new glassblowers are not able to build careers, businesses, experience, or skills needed to start doing advanced work, and positions have been eliminated. Without entry-level work, you don't get a new generation of medium and advanced workers.

Repair of specialized equipment is a big deal, too. In many cases it takes as much skill as fabricating an apparatus in the first place.

Like the article says, it helps a lot if the glassblower understands the scientific process and works closely with the researcher. I think researchers work around this by finding ways to use or combine standard equipment. A scientist doing truly novel work, though, will benefit from or require customized glassware.

My belief is that this will be solved by 3-D printing or automation in some way.

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3D printing? Have you even seen a glassblower? If you are in the NE US the Corning Museum in Elmira is recommended. Otherwise one can just look at the Chemglass or Ace Glass catalog and consider that everything in there was made from glass tubing with the aid of nothing more than a torch and a lathe. No pressed glass, no forms are involved.

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

a more consumery article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/you-can-now-3d-pri...

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.

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.

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.

Not yet, but with the intensity of research and progress on 3-4 different techniques, I think it's just a matter of time.

MIT developed a molten glass extruder recently although I'm not sure it can do borosilicate: http://matter.media.mit.edu/environments/details/glass-ii

I am interested in the amount of specialized glasswork required by the institution. I also doubt that the glassware of tomorrow's science is even remotely like the glassware of today's. The next glassworker is more of a materials scientist, with glassware as a skill, probably; in much the same way as a programmer may know both Java and Python.

Fused deposited glass is not the same as glassware.

FDM glass: https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/08/Glass-Printing_Med... (and sadly this counts as a pretty complex example)

Glassware, not complex at all: http://www.raystoreylighting.com/wpimages/wp71af747e_05_06.j...

Somewhat complex glassware: http://www.adamschittenden.com/laboratoryglasswarecondenser....

You can see the clear differences. Assuming you can get the printer at all, 3d printed glass has layers (and therefore isn't going to contain gases or hold vacuums very well), it's easily 10x heavier, far more expensive, ...

Presumably they will be making progress with this. There are several different techniques under development now, ranging from the one you mention to working with regular molten glass.

One thing that will be super hard with 3D printed glass is to get a smooth inside surface. You can't rework it because you can't get at it.

You could leave hollow parts open and go inside there with a torch or laser. It's common to reach into tubes or vessels with tools in many techniques, from modern 'inside out' to ancient painting methods. This would be difficult for sections with hidden inner parts or curves, so perhaps it could all be prepared and then assembled in stages (which is what we do anyway when making these things by hand).

Also there are several alternate methods under development that won't leave a rough surface, like hot glass methods.

Glass can be smoothed by heating to temperatures below that which cause sagging and deformity. If the smoothness is fine, on the order of a frosty surface (>200 grit or so) that would polish it (this is called kiln polishing). Of course, you risk basically melting the piece so this is a delicate operation with anything other than a plate of glass.

If 3d printing doesn't work, we can create robots that do what glassblowers do. I could easily script what I do for the right machinery (a series of computer controlled lathes and torches).

neon glass-blowing may also be a path into scientific glassblowing, it is a bit more science-y than the art stuff as it involves sensitive vacuum equipment and very high voltages.

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