I am planning on bringing back the glass ornament silvering class soon now that we can more safely do this thanks to the fume hood. I’m currently planning 2 versions of the class one science heavy and one science lite version partnering with glassworks:
Glass Blowing + Science Lite Silvering (scheduled one after another)
Stand alone Science heavy class (interactive lecture on the chemistry first)
I’ve got a few questions: Is there any interest in a science heavy version of the class where I will go nitty gritty into the chemistry? Or do you think no one will want to listen to that and so I should just only do science lite classes (i.e. a 5 minute intro, then just mix the chemicals, and get to silvering)? If we do a joint class series with glassworks, do you prefer that they are scheduled one after another on the same day? Or is that too much and would it be preferable to do the silvering later? Would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!
Pretty sure that the glass will need to be one day, and silvering the next day. Once you heat glass, you have to anneal it so that it doesn’t break from thermal shock.
I was under the impression that borosilicate that is only a mm or two thick wouldn’t have as much of an issue but I’m no expert here. I blew a small sphere when taking the intro class from Max and it didn’t shatter but perhaps I’m mistaken and I was just lucky.
Excellent! The silver mirroring process is actually a great demonstration to give an overview on chemical/materials science concepts such as redox reactions, reducing sugars, corrosion, explosives, functional groups, epitaxial growth, equilibria, reaction diagrams, Gibbs free energy, solubility, etc. etc. I’ve just got to choose which topics to cover.
I’m trying to strike a balance between being sufficiently informative and going too hog wild on the science such that it becomes overwhelming. I’m planning on it all being conceptual though (so no math required).
I’d love to learn to make an ornament, especially if its anything more fancy than just a simple sphere.
I’ve submitted a “science heavy” version of the class for 10/12 (will be my first class taught at DMS). I will also be coordinating with glassworks this week as to when the “science lite: just silver it” classes will be offered.
Still a good number of spaces available for the class on 10/12 at 1:30PM. If you are interested in a more chemistry/materials science focused class feel free to sign up.
Please note that we will later be offering a science lite version later that focuses just on silvering stuff with maybe a 5 minute science intro. I will schedule those after glass gets a Christmas ornament blowing class up on the schedule so that you can blow and then silver your own ornaments.
In the past (and probably for the sake of simplicity) we just purchased clear glass ornaments from a big box store, then mirrored the inside during the class.
The regular round one was $1.40 each and the flat ones were a little over $2. I was thinking the flat ones might be easier for doing additional decoration like vinyl stickers or etching.
