The term blowpipe refers to one of several tools used to direct streams of gases into any of several working media.
The term blowpipe refers to one of several tools used to direct streams of gases into any of several working media.
If a stream or jet of air is directed through a flame, fuel air mixing is enhanced and the jet exiting the flame is intensely hot. Jewelers and glassblowers engaged in lampwork have used the blowpipe since ancient times, with the blast being powered by the user's lungs. For small work, a mouth-blown blowpipe may be used with a candle flame or an alcohol lamp, with established techniques for applying oxidizing and reducing flames to the workpiece or specimen. Starting in the late 18th Century, blowpipes have been powered by mechanisms, initially bladders and bellows, but now blowers, compressors and compressed gas cylinders are commonplace. While blowing air is effective, blowing oxygen produces higher temperatures, and it is also practical to invert the roles of the gasses and blow fuel through air. Contemporary blowtorches and oxy-fuel welding and cutting torches can be considered to be modern developments of the blowpipe.
In chemistry and mineralogy blowpipes have been used as scientific instruments for the analysis of small samples since about 1738, according to the accounts of Torbern Bergman. One Andreas Swab, a Swedish metallurgist and Counsellor of the College of Mines is credited with the first use of the blowpipe for 'pyrognostic operations', of which no record remains. The next person of eminence who used the blowpipe was Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who put it to the purpose of the discrimination of minerals by means of fusible reagents. [1] In 1770 an English translation of Cronstedt's work was made by Von Engestrom, annexed to which was a treatise on the blowpipe. Despite this opening, assay by blowpipe was for the time an occupation undertaken for the most part in Sweden. Bergman's use of the blowpipe outstripped all of his predecessors, and he widened its application from mineralogy to inorganic chemistry, giving rise to what may be regarded as a masterpiece of philosophical investigation, De Tubo Ferruminatorio, published in Vienna in 1779 (and translated into English in 1788). Bergman's assistant, Johan Gottlieb Gahn, is credited with improving the design and application of the blowpipe. Gahn travelled with a portable blowpipe, applying it to every kind of chemical and mineralogical enquiry, such as proving the presence of copper in the ashes of vegetables. Gahn published a Treatise on the Blowpipe, which was reprinted a number of times in contemporary chemistry textbooks. Jöns Jakob Berzelius worked with Gahn to ascertain in a systematic manner of the phenomena presented by different minerals when acted on by the blowpipe. He established, according to Griffin, the notion that the blowpipe was an instrument of indispensable utility, and his published work, later translated into English, was regarded as one of the most useful books on practical chemistry extant.
The blowpipes of all of the foregoing blasted air into a flame. The blow pipe was used by the Egyptians at around 200 BCE and to today. Antoine Lavoisier is credited as the first to blow oxygen - of which he was co-discoverer - through a blowpipe to support the combustion of charcoal, in 1782. Others, such as Edward Daniel Clarke, employed hydrogen, and later mixed hydrogen and oxygen in the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. The vastly increased temperatures, and the volatility of hydrogen-oxygen mixes drove on the development of the so-called gas blowpipe as a tool, and at the same time brought many new materials into reach of the blowpipe as a tool for assay. Robert Hare was a noted exponent of the improved tool. Goldsworthy Gurney, whilst at the Surrey Institute, published in 1823 an account of a new blowpipe so constructed as to enable the operator to produce a flame of great size, power and brilliancy by burning large quantities of the mixed gases with the utmost safety. Gurney went on to employ the principles in his Bude light.
In glassblowing, the term blowpipe refers to a pipe used to blow a bubble of air into a gather of molten glass, as the first step in the creation of hand-blown glass bottles and bowls. By the end of the first century, the two primary glassblowing tools were the iron blowpipe and pontil. [2] Glassblowing blowpipes are long enough to keep the gather of molten glass at a safe distance from the glassblower and rigid enough to support the weight of the glass when the pipe is held horizontally.
The term blowpipe is also used to refer to the pipe used to blow deliver air to the tuyeres of a forge or blast furnace. [3] The blowpipe of a forge may be considered to be a large bellows operated version of a mouth-blown blowpipe, directing air through a coal or charcoal flame.
Blowpipes are also known as blow pokers (or just blow pokes). They are used to start and stoke fires.
Blowpipes are straight, tube-like tools primarily used to direct oxygen to boost a wooden fire. Blowpipes have been in use for hundreds of years, but were first documented by John Griffin in his 1827 book A Practical Treatise on the Use of the Blowpipe.
Blow pokers are multifunctional fire irons. Primarily they are used to arrange the embers or firewood in a wood fire (the poker), secondarily they are used as a blow pipe. The term "BlowPoker" was introduced in 2005 by the German company Red Anvil GmbH, a manufacturer of fire irons and fireside accessories. Their BlowPoker also has a plate to arrange the ashes. Since 2005 the term blow poker has established itself in the trade as a generic term for a multifunctional poker tool.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a Swedish German pharmaceutical chemist.
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower, glassmith, or gaffer. A lampworker manipulates glass with the use of a torch on a smaller scale, such as in producing precision laboratory glassware out of borosilicate glass.
Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftsmen in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.
MAPP gas was a trademarked name, belonging to The Linde Group, a division of the former global chemical giant Union Carbide, for a fuel gas based on a stabilized mixture of methylacetylene (propyne), propadiene and propane. The name comes from the original chemical composition, methylacetylene-propadiene propane. "MAPP gas" is also widely used as a generic name for UN 1060 stabilised methylacetylene-propadiene.
Lampworking is a type of glasswork in which a torch or lamp is used to melt the glass. Once in a molten state, the glass is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. It is also known as flameworking or torchworking, as the modern practice no longer uses oil-fueled lamps. Although lack of a precise definition for lampworking makes it difficult to determine when this technique was first developed, the earliest verifiable lampworked glass is probably a collection of beads thought to date to the fifth century BC. Lampworking became widely practiced in Murano, Italy in the 14th century. As early as the 17th century, itinerant glassworkers demonstrated lampworking to the public. In the mid-19th century lampwork technique was extended to the production of paperweights, primarily in France, where it became a popular art form, still collected today. Lampworking differs from glassblowing in that glassblowing uses a furnace as the primary heat source, although torches are also used.
Baron Axel Fredrik Cronstedt was a Swedish mineralogist and chemist who discovered the element nickel in 1751 as a mining expert with the Bureau of Mines. Cronstedt is considered a founder of modern mineralogy, for introducing the blowpipe as a tool for mineralogists, and for proposing that the mineral kingdom be organized on the basis of chemical analysis in his book Försök til mineralogie, eller mineral-rikets upställning.
Glass tubes are mainly cylindrical hollow-wares. Their special shape combined with the huge variety of glass types, allows the use of glass tubing in many applications. For example, laboratory glassware, lighting applications, solar thermal systems and pharmaceutical packaging to name the largest.
Glass bead making has long traditions, with the oldest known beads dating over 3,000 years. Glass beads have been dated back to at least Roman times. Perhaps the earliest glass-like beads were Egyptian faience beads, a form of clay bead with a self-forming vitreous coating. Glass beads are significant in archaeology because the presence of glass beads often indicate that there was trade and that the bead making technology was being spread. In addition, the composition of the glass beads could be analyzed and help archaeologists understand the sources of the beads.
Oxyhydrogen is a mixture of hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) gases. This gaseous mixture is used for torches to process refractory materials and was the first gaseous mixture used for welding. Theoretically, a ratio of 2:1 hydrogen:oxygen is enough to achieve maximum efficiency; in practice a ratio 4:1 or 5:1 is needed to avoid an oxidizing flame.
Murrine are colored patterns or images made in a glass cane that are revealed when the cane is cut into thin cross-sections. Murrine can be made in infinite designs from simple circular or square patterns to complex detailed designs to even portraits of people. One familiar style is the flower or star shape which, when used together in large numbers from a number of different canes, is called millefiori.
Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was an English surgeon, chemist, architect, builder, lecturer and consultant. He was a prototypical British gentleman scientist and inventor of the Victorian era.
In glassblowing, cane refers to rods of glass with color; these rods can be simple, containing a single color, or they can be complex and contain strands of one or several colors in pattern. Caneworking refers to the process of making cane, and also to the use of pieces of cane, lengthwise, in the blowing process to add intricate, often spiral, patterns and stripes to vessels or other blown glass objects. Cane is also used to make murrine, thin discs cut from the cane in cross-section that are also added to blown or hot-worked objects. A particular form of murrine glasswork is millefiori, in which many murrine with a flower-like or star-shaped cross-section are included in a blown glass piece.
Oxy-fuel welding and oxy-fuel cutting are processes that use fuel gases and oxygen to weld or cut metals. French engineers Edmond Fouché and Charles Picard became the first to develop oxygen-acetylene welding in 1903. Pure oxygen, instead of air, is used to increase the flame temperature to allow localised melting of the workpiece material in a room environment. A common propane/air flame burns at about 2,250 K, a propane/oxygen flame burns at about 2,526 K, an oxyhydrogen flame burns at 3,073 K and an acetylene/oxygen flame burns at about 3,773 K.
Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass.
Hydrogen safety covers the safe production, handling and use of hydrogen, particularly hydrogen gas fuel and liquid hydrogen.
A glossary of terms used in glass art
A blowtorch, also referred to as a blowlamp, is an ambient air fuel-burning gas lamp used for applying flame and heat to various applications, usually metalworking.
Factitious airs was a term used for synthetic gases which emerged around 1670 when Robert Boyle coined the term upon isolating what is now understood to be hydrogen. Factitious means "artificial, not natural", so the term means "man-made gases".
Lead burning is a welding process used to join lead sheet. It is a manual process carried out by gas welding, usually oxy-acetylene.
Blown Away is a Canadian reality glassblowing competition television series that premiered on the Canadian channel Makeful before a subsequent release on the streaming platform Netflix. The 10-episode first season was released on July 12, 2019. The series is filmed in Canada and is produced by Marblemedia.
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