Whoa!
Hey what's up guys? Welcome back, I'm Grant Thompson - The King of Random
And I'm Derek, I run a channel called Veritasium.
Today we're here to answer a comment request from pandapika
Who wants to know does the backyard metal foundry get hot enough to melt glass
That's we're here to find out
so what kind of glass are we going to try to melt
So I guess there's different types of glass, there's borosilicate
and there's soda lime glass. Most of the world's glass is soda lime.
So I just went out in the grocery store and I picked up some of this Dr Pepper because it's the
one that I found in the glass bottles and I'm thinking what we're probably going to do
is just empty these bottles place them down the foundry, fire it up and just see
what it takes to melt them if in fact they will melt at all
so the question we're going to try and answer today, is does this cheap o little
backyard foundry actually get hot enough to melt glass, soda lime glass? We're not
sure we're going to put it to the test and watch what happens
borosilicate glass has boric oxide in, I think it's B₂O₃ and that just
makes that glass a much less expansive when the temperature changes
which is really good that will help you avoid thermal shock so you're doing anything
with wild temperature swings, this is the kind of glass borosilicate glass is what you want to use
Let's get this thing fired up! Look at the size of this thing
I accidentally ordered this off Amazon it's much bigger than I was anticipating
but I think it's going to work great. That is a huge crucible.
We'll stick that down right in the middle, one of our glass bottles should tuck in there
nicely I think but I think first we'll just go ahead and get that ripping hot
and ideally that's going to fit right in there but we will want to remove the
contents first or else you may be dealing with a small explosion
soda explosions we're not going to worry too much about the labels because those are going to burn right off, I promise.
I'm looking forward to seeing grant fire this up
I've never seen Grant in action so I'm looking forward to it
It's all you dude
Derek: All right, firing it up Grant: All right here we go
Woohoo! (Derek: Is it on?) That's it
so what's happening now is the two jets are forming a twirling vortex of fire that's surrounding the crucible there, and we're going to
put this lid on to keep as much heat in as we can
Derek: It sounds like a hog, like a .. almost like a Harley or something. You know?
So we're just gonna let that sit for about 10 to 15 minutes to let that crucible
warm up when it's glowing red-hot we bring out the glass
quick update guys
this thing's been running for about 15 to 20 minutes now I think it's about as
hot as we can get it, so we're going to have Derek go ahead and take the lid off and
we are going to throw some glass down inside Derek: Let's do it
Grant: Ohh yeah, that is hot, hot stuff
Okay, here's a glass bottle number one. Ready?
You can see the label starting to burn off a little bit the flames are coming up you can see that bite
Derek: Yeah that swirling motion. You think it's going to crack, or what?
Grant: There's a chance it could crack but I actually don't know.
Derek: You don't think it's going to smash up in our faces? I'm trusting you here.
Grant: I don't think it will, if I'm being honest I don't think it will. -Laughing-
Derek: Is it melting already?
Grant: It does look like it's melting already, Derek: On the side Grant: I wasn't sure if that was just
playing tricks on me Derek: It melted pretty quick
Grant: What the heck? There's no way that that melted. We didn't even put the lid on yet.
What? You got to be kidding me. What? Look at that, it's just melting down into a puddle.
Derek: I did not expect to see that so soon Grant: You know, I was expecting we'd have to put the
lid on and get it quite about hotter than that but no just sitting in the
crucible for 30 45 seconds and it started toppling on it's own, that really took
me off-guard. This is amazing look at it this. Look at that! Derek: It's like a puddle in a minute.
Grant: Guys my expectations already absolutely blown out of the water I was hoping the foundry would
melt glass I had no idea it would melt glass that quickly Derek: Like that
Grant: We didn't even have to put the lid back on Derek: No, it was the the bottom actually melting and the
whole thing was toppling over crumpling down until essentially a puddle of glass liquid
Grant: I'm just going to turn the gas off for a second Derek: Are you going to pull that out?
Grant: I just want to see what kind of condition this- Look at that! Oh...
Derek: It is really tacky
Grant: Wow it's like putty.
Grant: That is unexpectedly awesome
Derek: You can tell it's got some viscosity now.
Grant: So this makes me wonder like what would happen if we did put the
lid in there and run it for a bit longer.
We're back in business. Ready?
Grant: This thing is now just become multi-multi-purpose: aluminum, copper, brass, gold, glass. What else?
Derek: So now you gotta do some glass-blowing experiments on your channel?
Are you going to try to make a glass blown object Grant: That's a great idea. Derek: I'm going to challenge you to
Grant: Glass-blowing, coming up on the King of Random Cooking Channel
Derek: That would be pretty random. Grant: So we're going to let this thing set for about another
five to ten minutes we're going to see what happens when we leave the glass in
there with the lid in place - how much can we decrease the viscosity. Derek: It's going to be a gooey mess when we open that thing, man
Grant: I think so So obviously when we get glass hot enough
it resembles a liquid I mean obviously it is liquid, it flows right but
what about glass in its solid state Derek: At room temperature a lot of people say
that it is a liquid one of the reasons for that is because glass is something
called an amorphous solid which means that the actual molecules don't line up
like when you get ice right all the water molecules actually lock into this
crystalline structure and it's a particular shape but in glass they stay
really kind of disorganized Grant: That's really interesting so what you're saying is
even glass panes those window panes on a house a hundred years later can still
actually be flowing Derek: Well, about that, I think I made a video about this you can
go check it out on my channel is glass actually a liquid at room temperature
Grant: So we'll put a link down in the description is glass really a liquid at room
temperature you can go find out on the Veritasium channel, in the meantime
let's get back to our foundry and see how its reacted now that we've had the
lid on for the last ten minutes
I can actually see it, yeah it looks like...
I don't know how to describe it almost looks like whipping cream, you can see
the different layers but it is completely melted down and it's all at the bottom of the crucible right now.
Derek: What are we going to do with it? Grant: That's a great question
Derek: Do you want me to get something? Grant: Now that we've melted this glass, what on Earth are we going to do with it?
Why don't we get like something like a cookie sheet or a casserole tray...
Derek: I'm going to get something, bring it out
Grant: Put some dirt on it we'll see if we can make a very crude mold just for proof of concept.
all right guys it is time Mr. Lid-Remover
Grant: Look at that! Derek: That is serious.
Grant: It's a glass soup.
Grant: Do you see that? I'd say that's molten.
Derek: Absolutely, that is glass liquid. Absolutely.
Grant: Yeah, I love how liquid that is, that's amazing I'd say it has the consistency of
like a melted caramel (KAIR-ah-məl), melted caramel (KAR-məl) Derek: Yeah
So we got a little bit of dirt, we added some moisture, we're just
going to use this glass bottle to make an impression and just do a really crude
casting just as a proof of concept. See if it even works. Derek: This is really meta. Right, we have melted
down a Dr. Pepper bottle and now we're trying to cast it back into the shape
of a Dr. Pepper bottle. Take that!
Grant: There we go, glass is looking liquid. We know from experience we can't just pour
this thing in so we're just going to try turning the whole thing over on some
cinder blocks and letting it do its thing like that. It moves so slowly I wouldn't
be surprised if it like solidified before it- Derek: If it freezes as it's coming down
Derek: Come on, man.
Grant: That stuff's going to be really difficult to get out of that crucible Derek: No kidding
Grant: Is it? (Oh! Look at it go!) Oh, look at that, look at that! Is it going to hit the mold or is it off a little bit?
Derek: It's off, it's a little bit off but it'll get down. Yeah. (Here we go) Nice, nice.
Grant: It's cooling down fast though, isn't it? It looks like lava. Derek: It does, you can see that it's still
glowing right there's still- Grant: Oh man. Oh! We have contact, but yeah look how fast
it's cooling down. Derek: Wonder if we can like pull it out of there a little faster
Grant: It's already solidified (Whoa) Look at that.
Grant: Huh. Oh, it's still going. It's like cheesy pizza.
Derek: Up above, it's still hot, I can see it coming down in hot pieces Grant: Now it's solidifying into like hard candy-equivalent
Derek: This is cool Grant: Feel the heat radiating off that crucible - toasty!
Okay I'm going to put this crucible over and see what's left inside now that
nothing else is coming out. I'm just going to take this here, flip it around (Oh wow)
We've almost made like a little improvised glass bowl in there
Oh there's a little molten aluminum peeking out down there
What's amazing is how quickly this cools - oh wow
Oh, there goes! Oh... clean-up on aisle three
Let's go ahead and move this back and take a look at what kind of a casting we got
Grant: Hahahaha that is terrible Derek: It's not much of a casting
I mean, can you melt glass - yes. Can you cast it - not yet.
Grant: Not really.
I'm gonna grab this, oops it's brittle
Derek: It did start to conform a little bit on the bottom sides - the shape - but it wasn't - couldn't stay hot long enough
Derek: (yeah) I feel like if you could cast it almost like within (oh yeah) another foundry Grant: And if you had your mold preheated as well
Derek: Oh yeah Grant: That would help a lot
I mean so I think as a result of what we saw today
you can definitely melt glass in this foundry so you can't necessarily cast
it very well, not yet Grant: No that's going to take a much more
professional setup than we've played with here, but proof of concept here guys
we can actually liquefy glass to the point where we'll it will drip into
whatever mold we want to, the problem it that it just cools down too much before it's- Derek: Yeah, you have to keep it hot
Grant: It's very cool. So there you have it guys, we started this experiment for the
purpose to see if the metal foundry would melt glass and we found that it did
Not only did it - it did a lot faster than we were expecting and got it to a very
"less viscous" consistency? Derek: Yeah, that's right it was flowing quite - quite rapidly
except when we try to get it out, tried to pour it into that mold, then it cooled
down quite rapidly as well so we couldn't quite make a mold out of it
Grant: That's what we noticed, as hot as the glass was, it still only took a few
seconds for it to cool down and solidify. We could pull strands with it, we could make
really weird-looking sculptures with it I don't know how we're going to clean up
this crucible now Derek: I think you're going to have to like chip it off
Grant: I think that is going to be a terrible mess but anyway we didn't have a lot of fun doing
it we're so glad you could join us here make sure you go check out Derek with
Veritasium he has got a lot of intellectual content a lot of things
that will challenge your brain and he has got a video that goes even more
in-depth on the properties of glass itself go check them out Derek at Veritasium
Links down the description and a huge shout out to pandapika
thanks for your comment you can go ahead and check your Youtube inbox we're going
to be sending you 25 bucks thanks so much for joining us for this video guys
we'll be looking for the next one talk to you then
Derek: Cheers. You know I've never had Dr. Pepper before? Grant: Really? (Yeah) Me neither
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