Third Attempt at Clear Glass | How to Make Everything

After the failure of making clear glass for a second time while making my microscope, I received a bunch of comments with useful suggestions that I wanted to give a shot.

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Today, getting what you need is as easy as a trip to the store. From food to clothing, energy, medicine, and so much more, Andy George will discover what it takes to make everything from scratch. His mission is to understand the complex processes of manufacturing that is often taken for granted and do it all himself. Each week he’s traveling the world to bypass the modern supply chain in order to harvest raw materials straight from the source. Along the way, he’s answering the questions you never thought to ask.

Music by the talented Taylor Lewin

[htme]

The general rule I have, at least for my main videos, is to start only from the naturally occurring fundamental ingredients of everything I attempt to make, with nothing bought at a store. So I need to either produce soda ash from another natural source or find a natural source of it. Both of these options are possible, but only at locations a thousand miles from where I live.

Hopefully later this year I'll be able to make it to the coast and burn seaweed there to produce soda ash, or be able to source natural sources of natron.

[theCodyReeder]

You might need to ask cody'slab for help, I bet he knows what those "extra chemicals" are and how to make/find them.

[ReeeMoo]

I love how this channel is turning into a quest for making pure glass. It shows how complicated and accurate the process is nowadays and we take it for granted.. It shows how you're dedicated to actually succeeding and not just trying.. Keep it up.. waiting for a clear glass video one day. :))

[yoonmikim]

You could try a simpler project such as "How to make a broom", which would be fairly cheap to do--you have the leftover yarn, sourcing the wood wouldn't be that hard, and getting the broom end probably would mean old chaffs of wheat or some such. Also, you can make a drop spindle for fairly cheap.

I've also made hats--which isn't that difficult and the chaffs of wheat would be local to start. The shaping takes some getting used to, though.

Oh on making the shirt, etc, you should full the cloth before sewing it, which will tighten the grain of the cloth. Traditionally, people would weave it and use urine (because of the ammonia) to tighten the grain of the cloth, which also would whiten it. They'd dry it and then wash it again with lye soap.

[tarot]

I'm a chemistry student and I know how you can make sodium carbonate from scratch (I think this is what you mean by soda), you have to take salted water with the purest salt available, then electrolyse it to produce NaOH, beware, NaOH is corosive and it realease Cl2 gas wich is dangerous, you can dispose of it by plunging the gas exit on a solution of potassium carbonate (ash) to neutralize it . Then when you have your naOH solution it will slowly carbonate by reacting with CO2, you can make the reaction faster by bubling CO2 enriched air (for example coming out of a close coal fire) into your solution
Good luck :)

[JustinCglass]

Might I reccomend using Silicon dioxide for your base source instead of sand
You can source it from any ceramics supplier
It's usually very clean with a small amount of iron oxide as an impurity
Also, desolve to silica in hot caustic soda, grind it into a powder.
That should make sodium silicate with is desolvable in water.
With that, use distilled water to prevent further impurities and dry it out
then add your lime to it and fire that
That should clear up the glass suitably

[DefaultGuy]

You guys deserve a TV show and 10 Million subscribers. All of your content is absolutely amazing!

[lawabidingcitizen]

If you heat up baking soda to 50°C you will have soda ash pretty easily

[HamsterXFiles]

This series is so original man I hope it'll grow. This shit should be on The Discovery Channel or something. Part history, part culture, part science, part cooking. Need more food related stuff.

[Zipo]

To try to avoid using any additional materials that you don't have access to. I'd suggest pulverizing your class that you've made and run it through some heating cycles to remove additional impurities. Then melt it again. I'm just going off of basic oxidation chemistry in my head. I would not cal this full proof but this is an intermediate in some forms of solids refining. It may help homogenize the crystal structure of your glass. I actually suppose this is the most prevalent problem your having is homogenous structure of your glass. Even a slightly blue or slightly. Green spherical lense could work as a filter. Although you're working on a clear glass setup. There is a chance that if you make enough glass with very little tint. The more glass that you add together the more dilute that system will become. This may be the key to solving your impurity problem from a "from scratch" approach. Any other way may just indeed involve real chemical processes.

[Gilotopia]

I'd like to see how lime free glass dissolves in water. Everyone talks about it but I have never seen it filmed

[shawneverette]

Soda ash, lime, and erbium, are used extensively as flux and clarifying agents in most of the glass industry. Another thing that you are overlooking is the quality of the burn. Optically clear glass usually wants somewhat of an oxidized environment to prevent any unwanted chemical reactions. A very specific schedule to "cook" out the bubbles is also needed, then a squeeze at a slightly lower temperature to push the bubbles to the surface. For "crystal" you would need to add lead, but that's just another host of problems.

[jebowlin]

It would be nice to know what the other chemicals are that help reduce the bubbles, perhaps NurdRage may have a vid that explains how to make something from scratch, or not

[jamesguevara]

This should be a TV show at Discovery Channel. Awesome work! Just subscribed

[felixinfrance]

Kelp from Scotland sounds like the most awesome way to get soda ash. I'm sure you could get it from any kelp in the north sea. Amsterdam is right near the beach and has plenty of kelp nearby. Maybe Pacific kelp is good enough?

[signoramybeloved]

Tbh by the time he finished was the time that it took for me to write 10 words on a essay due tomorrow

[SharpWorks]

This was pretty cool, I'm glad I stumbled onto this channel.

[bengu]

You can find soda ash in smaller quantities at the massive craft chain store Micheals!

[austinlee]

At 1:20 my mind wandered and i thought about how people had to do all this by hand and how amazing it was, really made me appreciate what people had to do without technology (music helped too)

[sulli]

To reduce the bubbles I would think you need to purify the silicone completely. Eventual you need to add an oxidizer to the sand to burn out impurities, like liquid oxygen. Or you need to to clear out the extra substances with steps of HydroChloric acid and Sodium Hydroxide. When either of these are complete with whatever you figure out is useful in another project then you should give the glass blowing another shot. I would think that the blowing will remove extra gasses because of density and diffusion. Your forge would have to be bigger, the glass would need to be purified as much as this video or more so, and you would need to have a heat cooler for your glass object to stay toasty and not flash freeze like an iron breastplate. You have the glass pretty much down, now we need the other pieces of the puzzle. I hope that I pointed out variables for future topics :)