BREAK or BOUNCE!? Unannealed Glass Balls

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LA Glass center: https://www.laglasscenter.com/

About a year ago I got the incredible opportunity to host a reality TV show about hot glass art called BLOWN AWAY. The first season came out last July and we wrapped filming on season two right before everyone went on lockdown. Being on set for 6 weeks I got exposed to all sorts of super talented and knowledgeable glass artists. Then on the night that the show came out on Netflix a local glass studio called the LA glass center invited me to a watch party.

https://www.laglasscenter.com/

The LA glass center is a studio in El Segundo about 15 minutes from my house and the owner is a guy named Joe Cariatti. Over the course of the last couple of years we’ve filmed all sorts of wacky science experiments with glass at Joe’s Studio.

https://www.joecariati.com/

However there was one thing that really stood out to me. One day Joe made a super simple glass ball and let it cool to room temperature without annealing it. Annealing is the process of letting the glass cool off from about 1200 degrees down to room temperature over several hours to allow it to work out stress points to make sure the glass doesn’t crack down the round. When this little glass ball cooled he threw it on the ground and it bounced all over the studio. I could not believe that it didn’t shatter as that’s usually what glass does when you throw it on the ground! So this got me thinking, why didn’t this little glass ball crack, and would it have if we annealed it first… and how big could we make glass balls before they would crack, or would they bounce just like the little glass ball?

LMK in the comments down below how you think we should keep this experiment moving forward!

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#blowingglass #glassblowing #glassart

Production Team:
Writer/Producer: Nick Uhas
DP: Kaleb Seaton
Editor: Jared Sarreal
Best Girl: Opal Roo (the dog)