Dichroic Glass Crafts Blog

Where can I get aluminum alloy for casting. I am looking for alloy 43, which is 95 Aluminum and 5 silicon? I only need about 30 pounds. I am having alot of trouble finding any alloy ingots. I am thinking of making my own out of glass and beer cans.

this is a simple project for kindergardeners….they will do a hand prind…i know, how boring…but can we use those glass beads, or little colored glass pieces, stuck in the clay…would they blow up, or maybe melt into the clay as a color?…thanks

cutting up some small pieces of coe 90 fusing glass to use in my dichroic glass cabochons

In my twenty years or so of owning a house, I have gone through several patio furniture sets. My first one was a standard picnic table with attached benches made of red cedar. It was functional and cheap and served us well at the time. But it had its drawbacks. Within a month or so the top became very grainy, and later developed deep grooves. Then it started to turn from a pleasant red to an unattractive dark grey. And, of course, it was uncomfortable because of the utilitarian design. The table and benches started moving, and I added a few more bolts. By year three or so I gave up. We had trouble even getting rid of it in the trash.  My second set was made of wrought iron. A beautiful table with a glass top, and some chairs to match. The chairs had a wrought iron lattice and outdoor cushions. Generally this set was far more usable than our first picnic table. The chairs were heavy and a pain to move, but they worked. Then one of the legs on a chair gave way. Now I found that this was much more difficult to fix than a wooden chair.  Around that time, I visited Indonesia and saw some teak furniture at a friends house. Apparently the bench had been in their family for generations. It was somewhat worn and rounded where people constantly sat. It felt good. My friend told me that one had to be careful buying teak, since they now had many qualities. Also he recommended that I buy something in the US itself, because it would cost more than the bench to ship, and he had heard that if the bench was not properly “processed” it would crack in the US. He could not give me more detail, and I did not know what he was talking about. I came back to the US and did some  research on teak. I found that teak is a great wood for outdoor use since it has natural oils that make  it weather and salt water resistant. It also has some natural insect resistance. And it is very tight grained – which means it will not splinter (that is why it is used on the decks of boats). All in all teak seemed to be a great wood for any furniture, but particularly outdoor furniture.  I thought I would buy a teak bench, and went to my local retailer. The prices just floored me. The guy told me that he had some fine brands, and they were all Grade A quality. I decided his teak was a little pricey and started to search on the internet, where  I found a whole range of prices. Confusing.  It turns out that you can get a whole range of grades. Grade A is the best, but you can get Grade B and Grade C teak. Also I learned about the “process” my Indonesian friend had talked about. This is kiln drying. If the teak wood is not properly kiln dried, it will crack.   And I learned about manufacture. You can get cottage industry made teak furniture, or you can get factory made teak furniture. The cottage industry made teak furniture is generally shipped assembled, because the carpenters “make it fit” by compensating for various imperfections during assembly and the wood is not kiln dried at all. The piece is sold fully assembled. The machine made teak furniture generally comes in “flat pack assembly” (which is large sections that need assembly), or in kits. Machine made teak furniture manufacturers offer a better warranty, because they can swap out damaged pieces easily. But machine made teak furniture is more expensive than the cottage industry kind.  So to buy a good piece of teak patio furniture, one should have Grade A teak wood, kiln drying, and machine manufacture.  I narrowed down my search. Even in this category, I found a range of prices. Further research showed that every company’s price depended on a few things. A retailer may  marked up by 100% or more from his wholesale price. So that would be expensive. On the internet stores, I found that there were a few direct importers, and each had their own price point, depending on their mark up, overhead etc.  From all my potential teak patio furniture vendors,  I found that www.Goldenteak.com had the best price for the quality at the time of my purchase. Goldenteak offered Grade A teak furniture that was machine made and kiln dried. They had a good selection of pieces and offered a lifetime warranty. And they were pleasant to deal with.  I have since purchased from Goldenteak, and am very pleased with the quality. But I am more pleased with my choice of teak wood for my patio furniture. I don’t do anything to it. It is easy to move. The chairs are very comfortable. I also enjoy knowing that I am helping the  environment by not using plastic, or even a complex process and paint for my furniture.  I have had my teak furniture for the last twelve years. It has not changed, but I have. I think it will outlast me. My new philosophy – buy once, buy right.

:: What is optical fiber cleaving?
Simply put, optical fiber cleaving is the art of cutting glass optical fibers at a perfect 90° angle with a mirror like surface. This isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Why do we need to cut the fiber at a perfect 90° angle at all? Well, this is required when we want to fuse two optical fibers together. Optical fiber fusion splicing always requires that the fiber tips have a smooth end face that is perpendicular to the fiber axis. The cleave quality is very important in determining the fusion splicing loss. This is especially true for specialty fibers such as erbium-doped fibers and dispersion-compensating fibers.
:: How do fiber optic cleavers achieve this?
The basic idea of optical fiber cleaving is first to scratch the fiber with a very hard diamond edge scribing tool, which induces a sufficiently large surface crack, then the fiber cleaver applies a tensile stress to the fiber which causes the crack to expand rapidly across the fiber cross section. Some other fiber cleavers apply the tensile stress first and then scratch the fiber with the diamond edge scribing tool.
:: How does the fiber cross section surface look like after fiber cleaving?
After cleaving, the fiber cross section typically consists of three regions: the mirror region, the mist region and the hackle region. The mirror region is first produced while the crack propagates across the fiber. We want the mirror region to be as large as possible. A perfect fiber cleaving will be 100% mirror region which will result in minimum fusion splicing loss.
But in reality, as the crack propagates more, multiple crack fronts are produced close to the end of the cleave and that region is called the hackle region. The hackle region is a rough surface area which will cause bad fusion splicing. We never want hackle region to exist.
Mist region is the transition area between the mirror region and the hackle region.
:: Factors that affect the fiber cleaving quality
There are two major factors which mainly determines a fiber cleaving’s quality: the size of the initial crack and the applied tensile stress. In these two factors, the applied tensile stress plays a major part.
Ideally, the tensile stress should be low enough so the crack propagates and mirror region occupies the entire cross section of the fiber. When there are unacceptable amount of hackle region, in almost 100% cases, you should first adjust your fiber cleaver’s tensile stress.
But on the other hand, too low tensile stress can cause problems of its own. The main problem is an angled fiber cleave instead of a perpendicular 90% cut. Angled fiber cleave is the other culprit causing bad fusion splicing in addition to cleaves with too much hackle region.
Another problem caused by too low tensile stress is that a large initial crack is required to make a cut. This large initial crack itself may be a reason for bad splicing.
Even the best fiber optic cleavers cannot guarantee a high quality cleave 100% of the time. Two other major problem with fiber cleaving is fiber lip and fiber chip. Fiber lip is a protruding piece of glass at the periphery of a fiber tip. If the lip is longer than a few microns than it exhibits a serious problem for a good fusion splicing. 99% of the time you should re-cleave your fiber once you see a fiber lip on the tip.
Fiber chip is the opposite of a fiber lip. Fiber chip means the a small piece of glass missing from the periphery of the cleaved fiber tip. Even though smaller chips usually do not cause any bad fusion splicing, larger ones can be a serious problem. Larger fiber chip causes surface tension to shear the molten glass at the fiber tip and thus distort the fusion splice geometry.
:: High precision fiber cleaver manufacturers
A vast variety of fiber optic cleavers are commercially available now ranging from high precision cleavers for manufacturing floor and laboratory use to low cost field fiber cleavers for field splicing applications. Major supplies include AFL Fujikura, Fitel, Tyco/AMP, Sumitomo, Corning Cable Systems and more.