bluffroadglass
10-31-2017, 05:41 PM
I make scientific glass during the day -- mostly quartz. My boss let me set up a bench at work so I can play around with boro on my own torch after hours, which is great, but I've been dying to use my work lathe to try some more substantial stuff with boro, and my lathe burner and all my hand torches are set up for hydrogen. We sometimes work clear boro with hydrogen in the shop, but I'm especially curious about color. Has anyone here ever tried working boro color with hydrogen? Just wondering how that worked out as far as heat, flame environment, etc. I took a hydrogen/oxy hand torch and fused a few colored shorts together to see how the colors would be affected, and they looked fine to me. (Not sure what would happen as far as striking or reduction colors.) I did a search and the general consensus seemed to be that a hydrogen flame would be overkill for boro color, but my thought is, flame can be adjusted and heat can be reduced...so why wouldn't this work if I was gentle about it? I'm probably going to try it soon and am mostly just curious about what to expect.