Chilhuly in Steel?

[SoCal Dave]

Has anyone done Chihuly in steel.  I saw an exhibit in Seattle of Chihuly glass works and wondered if some of these pieces were possible in steel.  I see problems with tubing that make it difficult.  I understand that glass and steel are completely different and behave differently, but it would be wonderful to be able to produce steel objects that can flow a little like glass.  

[Frosty]

I don't think a person could make steel behave like glass except maybe in micro gravity. There's a HUGE difference in surface tension and viscosity. Getting steel to do what the Chiluly school of art glass does is something I'd LOVE to see!

What is pretty cool though is steel and glass have almost the same coefficient of expansion so slumping or even melting glass into iron/steel is very duable. Tempering the glass is a must of course unless you WANT crazed glass.

Tristan is pretty good at slumping marbles into forgings and I've been messing with lamp work glass. Fun stuff but gooey glass is some of the stickiest stuff you've ever messed with it gets on everything. Fun though.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Latticino]

As a former professional glass artist I have to add a couple of cautions regarding this.  Please note that I am following Frosty's typical instructions regarding terminology (i.e. getting it right aids in communication).  There are many different types of glass, and each has a rather different coefficient of thermal expansion.  If you don't get one that has a similar coefficient to that of the material you are attempting to marry to the glass you are asking for trouble.  This trouble can range from a minor crack in the glass to more "explosive" reactions, to some extent depending on whether the glass is encapsulated by the metal or surrounds it. Even composites that appear to be stable can react badly to exposure to varying thermal extremes down the road, or to what appear to be minor scratches (check Prince Rupert Drops out for fun).

The marbles that Frosty has mentioned could be either lampworked style borosilicate glass (like Pyrex, which is a lot more forgiving) or bottle type soda lime silicate glass(beer bottles, off hand blown glass...), which is not.  Either type needs to be annealed, not tempered, to be safe for ongoing use.  Checking the final product with a polariscope until you get your annealing sequence down is pretty critical (http://www.glassalchemy.com/building-a-polariscope).  Note that annealing glass is more similar to spheroidal annealing of steel that just throwing it into a barrel of vermiculite.  Controlling temperature at a slow rate as the glass cools down from around 915 deg. F to around 200 deg. F is critical for success.

I have found that glass/copper mixes tend to be a lot more stress free than glass/steel mixes.  Not sure if it is just the flexibility of the annealed copper, or a more close thermal expansion coefficient between the two.  Of course most of my experience is with soda lime silica glass, so YMMV.  I believe that there are a couple of other glassblowers/smiths participating on this site as well and hope that they chime in with their experience.

Needless to say there are certainly methods that can be used to echo Chihuly's organic glass forms in steel, just not glassblowing methods (though I have seen steel vessels "inflated" using compressed air to interesting effect).  Chihuly's floppy forms take advantage of differing thicknesses of glass deforming differently under the influence of heat, centrifugal force and gravity (or is that centripetal?...).  More organic manipulation of metal is certainly possible using the first two properties, but somewhat direct manipulation of the material is needed to mirror the others.

[Richard Furrer]

I think the poster is interested in making all metal shapes to mimic forms of glass...not glass and metal.

I have given this much thought over the years and have spend a rather large amount of time watching glass folk work (in person and youtube and some DVD). My conclusion is that even if we could the time would be better spent actually learning glass and treat it in a blacksmith manner.....your current mentality applied to glass.

Several handicaps exist when using glass techniques in metal.......one is a clear color....we ain't got one.

Some colors can be obtained with patina and different metals, but nothing to catch the spectrum of glass...even anodizing will not quite get you there.

 Dave I have worked through some ideas using induction to get near liquid (low yield) movement and use of high hydraulic loads to capture some of the "fluidity" of the glass methods, but it all falls short and is very troublesome.

Ric

[ironwolfforgeca]

well I haven't tried YET ! to mix glass & steel - But I do have a lampworker Nortel torch & glass

have played with it some -- ITS really FUN !! one of the things I am looking to make is glass leaf's

the weld them to a steel trees project ,so I must melt & form glass onto a steel or copper stem

I have done 2 tests so far it looks doable  

PS -- THANKS for the link latticino !

Edited September 4, 2015 by IronWolf

[clinton]

Look at some of Albert Paley's work. The ribbon forms in stainless steel are amazing. There are some good examples in San Francisco, I will try to get some pictures next time I go there. The lobby has a sculpture and there are exterior wall sconces.

[Frosty]

Thank you for speaking up, my hands on experience with glass is pretty much just messing around. I appreciate the correction, Annealing not tempering. With my experience working glass I should be quiet or just ask questions after doing some reading. Quoting Alex Bealer from "The Art of Blacksmithing" on mixing glass and iron doesn't count.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Latticino]

No worries, just didn't want anyone getting hurt. 

[Frosty]

No worries, just didn't want anyone getting hurt. 

I'm with you, I don't want people getting hurt either, especially if I gave them the idea. I appreciate corrections I get carried away sometimes and don't realize how far out of school I am.

Frosty The Lucky.

[SoCal Dave]

Part of my question, as Richard Furrer has stated,  is to find out if steel is workable in some manner like glass.  It is not so much the idea of working with glass and steel but I like that option.  I will stay away from trying to heat steel and pull it or push it in a direction.  I had thought about high hydraulic loads but it sounds like that isn't a good method either.  I do have some ideas of using tubing and solid bars together, but we will see.  I will need to make some larger tools for spreading/drifting, and acquire the steel. I will report on it later.    

[phabib]

about 15 years ago I met an artist by the name of Finley Fryer who mixes a lot of glass and metals.  He did this thing where he hung a bunch of colored glass with copper wire and then fused it all together into huge panels.  He said the copper and glass had close enough coefficients of expansion that allowed it all to happen without cracking the glass.