Anyone know of a way to melt and reform glass without buying a bunch of equipment? In pre-roman Europe they often recycled glass from more civilized areas.
Glass just needs to be heated to a very hot temperature, then it “melts.” Although technically glass is already semi-liquid, so it doesn’t really melt. Once melted you can blow it. At one time they put the liquid glass on melted tin to cool, thereby making sure the final product was flat.
With care the temperatures should be achievable with charcoal. I’m not exactly 100 percent sure how they used to do this, but glass predates coal so they must have used charcoal.
- Benjamin Shender
Actually, thats a common myth that has been conclusively debunked. Glass is no more a liquid than stone.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Glass_versus_a_supercooled_liquid
If you change your frame of reference, glass can be considered a fluid (not liquid), but then so can steel or stone.
Its an old myth that many people have tried so hard to maintain that they got into deep, state-of-matter physics, forgetting that once you go that far, nothing is what it seems. They would never apply that frame of reference to anything else in real world application…just glass.
200 year old telescope lenses still work. Paleolithic obsidian blades are still sharp. Egyptian tombs decor is still intact. Fossil lightning hasn’t deteriorated. The cathedral glass that supposedly ‘proves it’ has been found with the thick side up or sideways.
Besides…if those windows flowed that much in 150-400 years, some of the above items would be puddles. ;D
This isnt related to melting glass down or anything.
But glass can be knapped like obsidian etc. so you can make simple arrow heads and cutters erc
You can use glass bottles and mud to build walls…similar to cord wood construction. The walls let in lots of light, but I dont know how well they insulate.
I have never worked with glass outside of a kiln… It would be pretty hard to heat glass in a simple fire. You would need a blacksmiths forge and a bellows. I do know that if there is too high a level of contaminates in the fire/air you end up with smoky, bubbled, cracked glass.