"There is very little science within the industry. several major manufacturers were shut down for creating cadmium (google bullseye glass shut down). I think had the very large glass company had an educated scientist they could have prevented a lot of layoffs. My point being, Science is missing from this industry." - In my opinion, this is incorrect, and fairly condescending. There are -LOTS- of scientists in the industry, just look at Alfred University. Bullseye likely employed such people. There are currently allegations and a lawsuit that allege Bullseye was unfairly targeted. I believe Misha posted a link to an article a week ago or so.
The 3d printing thing - yeah, I've seen glass used in 3d printing, but i don't think you will be making anything significant with that method and boro, at least not anytime soon. Auto lathes are hard enough to program and get to produce parts consistently and correctly. (you should see the nightmare caused when brands of clear are switched in an autolathe department!) I doubt 3d printing with a low COE will produce very good results. I just cant imagine someone 3d printing blanks (If i am following your idea correctly), and turning a good profit on it. Why do you think people don't sell blanks now?
Besides, part of the value in doing all of the prep steps is developing the skills to successfully create a piece. If a glassblower bought all of their blanks premade from you, stringers pre pulled, ect, they probably would lack the skills to do anything with those materials (if they always just bought this stuff rather than making it). Also, is your line of thinking that if you sell large blanks, you will make something available to people without lathes that otherwise isn't? ("Point being it creates a piece of glass that any dude can create into a bong without him having to buy a $24,000 lathe.") If so, I'd have to disagree. Although making large pieces without a lathe might be difficult, there are lots of tools and techniques to overcome this. Rollers would be one way to easily make large blanks at the bench. I've seen plenty of people handle up to 44mm at the bench. I also helped someone pull a point on 110mm spontaneously (He yelled my name, i ran over, and we heated and pulled it, on the fly), but it was at the bench. If you meant to say your blanks would be preshaped bong bodies, i think this is even more unrealistic for 3D printed glass. lots of those designs require multiple steps in a specific order, essentially, they require being shaped one step at a time.
There are several beadmakers who lampwork with soda lime glass, as well as an entire community of artists who make a living with the Japanese soft glass (I can't remember what it's called....but it looks awesome). I'm not sure how profitable glasses other than boro are (because i lack experience with them myself), but others seem to do well, and lots of people make money in soft glass (although many are not lampworkers). Lots of Italian guys who sell VERY expensive soft glass lampworked pieces. Paul Stankard also sells soft glass lampworked pieces for well into the 5 figure range.
As far as quartz being between the new metallic glass you linked and boro - sort of, depending on what property you are comparing. This point feels moot to me because you are kind of glossing over one of the biggest reasons we use quartz or borosillicate. It isn't specifically for it's durability (although thermal shock durability is certainly a factor). The fact that the glass is chemically inert is much more significant, as far as it's technological value is concerned. This seems difficult to relate to the metallic glass you linked.
Despite the "degenerate" side of glass, there is a massive industry here as well (specifically, a scientific industry). My own personal interests are much more geared to the chemistry of glass than the art. I like where they come together (particularly, fumework), but the science is every bit as amazing to me as the colors produced. Lots of people are working to push glass as a material (how do you think the new metallic glass you linked came to be?). These people are not on instagram posting 3x a day with popular pipe hashtags, they are not getting published on the cover of your favorite weed magazine, they are at Alfred, or Rakow, studying and pushing the envelope in a lab, like any other material. But even on the artistic side....GA alone brought out like 17 colors to their palette this year. northstar brought out even more. We saw a rise of an entire UV palette this year, and Greasy started producing polychromatic glass (what, 5 different shades for a single color?). 20 years ago we had what.....10 colors that still had metal wires in them? 30 years ago no one was making boro color besides John Burton and his students. This entire industry has developed since then. It seems unreasonable to say that "science is missing from this industry" considering all of this stuff. What about all the proprietary knowledge that companies like Chemglass possess about Chemistry?
I mean this in a non-confrontational way, but it seems as though you have looked at glass with the smallest lens possible. You are looking at a small part of the overall glass industry (the glass pipe/ glass art side) and judging them on their scientific contributions (which absolutely exist), but ignoring the scientific side of the industry where what you seek can be found.
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