Thread: glass steam engine

Originally Posted by D110V8D

Scientific glassblowing is a lot like tool making, except the material used is generally borosilicate or quartz, instead of metal or plastic or whatever.

This is a great little example of what can be done with glass. Using a precision bore tubing machine, a centreless grinding machine, a honing machine and a glass lathe as well as some more common glassblowing equipment this kind of engine can be made in most well equipped glass blowing/glass engineering shops.

Clever people those glass blowers.

So - how much would you charge to make one?

It's hard to say really.

There could easily be over 100 hours in making something like this work, that is all the stuffing around included, making and machining all the precise parts etc. The frame and boiler etc would all come together pretty quickly once you had the other bits right.

Obviously this was a labour of love for the guy and wouldn't really be very cheap to reproduce.