[§ 42. Use of the Lathe in Glass-working. —]
If it is necessary to remove a good deal of glass, time may be saved by actually turning the glass in a lathe. According to the direction given above for grinding a tube into the neck of a bottle, very little glass need be removed if the drawing down is well done, so that for this purpose turning is often unnecessary.
If the taper of the stopper be small and it is permissible to use a thick tube, or if a solid stopper only has to be provided, or an old stopper quickly altered to a new form, turning is very useful. The glass may be "chucked" in any suitable manner, and run at a speed not exceeding 10 feet per minute. Prepare a three-cornered file by mercury-hardening and by grinding the end flat so as to form a cutting angle of about 80°, and use a moderate amount of kerosene lubrication, i.e. enough to keep the glass damp, but even this is not essential. Use the file as an ordinary brass turning tool, and press much more lightly than for metal turning. The glass will be found to scrape off quite pleasantly.
By chucking glass tubes on wooden mandrells the ends may be nicely turned in this manner ready for accurate closing by glass plates.
The process of grinding also is made much more rapid — at all events in the earlier stages — by chucking either the stopper or the bottle and holding the other member in the fingers, or in a wooden vice held in the hands. The finishing touches are best given by hand.
I ought to say that I think a good deal of glass-grinding, as practised in laboratories, might be advantageously replaced by glass turning or filing and certainly will be by any one who will give these methods a trial.
If one tube is to be ground into another, as in grinding a retort into a receiver, the latter must be drawn down from a larger piece, few beginners being able to widen a tube by the method explained with sufficient ease and certainty. The other operations are similar to the operations above described.
§ 43. Funnels often require to be ground to an angle of 60°. For this purpose it is well to keep a cast-iron cone, tapering from nothing up to four inches in diameter. This may be mounted on a lathe, and will be found of great use for grinding out the inside of funnels. Care must be taken to work the funnel backwards and forwards, or it will tend to grind so as to form rings, which interfere with filtering. A rough polish may be given on the lines explained in the next section.
§ 44. A rough polish may be easily given to a surface which has been finished by washed flour emery, in the following manner. Turn up a disc of soft wood on the lathe, and run it at the highest wood-turning speed. Rub into the periphery a paste of sifted powdered pumice stone and water.
Any fairly smooth ground glass surface may be more or less polished by holding it for a moment against the revolving disc. Exact means of polishing will be described later on. Meanwhile this simple method will be found both quick and convenient, and is often quite sufficient where transparency, rather than figure, is required. I daresay a fine polish may be got on the same lines, using putty powder or washed rouge (not jewellers' rouge, which is too soft, but glass-polishers' rouge) to follow the pumice powder, but I have not required to try this.