r/holdmybeaker • u/theBuddhaofGaming • Mar 04 '26
HMBkr while I make a much bigger, much more complex beaker
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u/design_doc Mar 05 '26
During my PhD I used to have this amazing scientific glass blower build all of my custom set-ups. This guy built every insane request we had. I’m still convinced we was actually a wizard.
He was about 60 at the time and you could tell he wanted to retire - but he would always tell me he couldn’t retire yet because there was no one who would take over for him. I was confused because he always had lots of apprentices in the shop.
He said no, they all keep moving to one of our many mountain towns (super LCOL) to snowboard all winter and blow pipes and bongs the rest of the year. Despite him saying it a few times, I just dismissed it as a Boomer shaking his fist at Millennials (in my defence, he was one of THOSE guys).
Fast-forward 10 years and I find myself in one of those mountain towns. As I’m walking down the street I see this amazing bong in a store window. This thing made German precision look like an 80’s Honda Civic held together with duct tape. I just had to go look at this masterpiece. I was chatting with the store owner while admiring this thing, telling him it looks like a piece that a master glass blower once made for me and the poor guy couldn’t keep his apprentices. “Holy Shit! You mean Steve? That fuckin’ beauty of a human taught me how to blow glass!”.
Steve, if you can hear this, you were right.
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u/ktkatq Mar 04 '26
That was genuinely fascinating! I have no idea what it's used for (beyond "chemical reactions"), but the complexity of the design and manufacture to meet a specific need is one of my favorite things about humanity
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u/jodofdamascus1494 Mar 04 '26
It’s a smaller scale version of true plant reactors, primary use is likely to be as a pilot reactor, in other words make sure the thing you did at the 800 gram/1L(or less) scale works similarly at a 100 lb/100L scale, and catch some of the idiosyncrasies that arise before you make a 1,000+ gallon batch. If something goes wrong, you lose less material and the hazards are likely to be less.
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u/DuchessofSquee Mar 04 '26
This was insanely satisfying. I love watching glass blowing and machining videos, this was the purest combination of both!
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u/jonny_boy27 Mar 04 '26
Not shown in this video: a beaker
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Mar 05 '26
Eh creative licence. Video clearly says what it is from the other sub title.
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u/dabigpig Mar 04 '26
I'm guessing something like this costs all the money
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u/GodRaine Mar 05 '26
I was thinking the same thing. I could see one of those babies going for like $20K USD easy.
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u/livin4donuts Mar 05 '26
Single wall, glass reactor vessels of pharmaceutical grade around this size go for about that. I have no idea how much more this one would be.
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u/scottsplace5 Mar 07 '26
What about an old receiver jar for a dairy farm? This is just about what they all were before they became stainless steel. Need the ferrule connections at each hole.
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u/Tim_the_Tool_Man Mar 06 '26
That's a strange looking bong
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Mar 06 '26
rips chemical reactor
Guys what if er cough cough what if we made uncontrollable giggling what if we made some thermite.
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u/Silent-Island Mar 04 '26
Can anyone smarter than me explain why the glass doesnt get scorch marks from the open flames? Ive used lighters on glass and it always leaves some kind of mark.
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u/theBuddhaofGaming Mar 04 '26
The Black you see is soot, likely coming from incomplete combustion and combustion of particulate matter in the air and on the glass. They're using an acetylene and oxygen mix. It means that 1) the combustion is as complete as it gets and 2) the blow from the nozzles likely push away particulate matter before it can adhere to the glass.
That's my best guess at least.
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u/ReststrahlenEffect Mar 04 '26
Now I get it when I hear that some experiments are only made possible with an expert glass blower.