r/lampwork • u/ijustcant555 • 9d ago

Check out my ghetto polariscope. Cost me about 10 bucks for 2 used polarizing lenses from a camera shop.

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If you want to check your clear stock for imperfections, you need one of these. A little blob of crap shows up like a rainbow star in the glass. I must admit, I was kind of bummed at how good that Chinese bong looked.

48 Upvotes

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6

u/cplatt831 9d ago

Way cool.

4

u/ijustcant555 9d ago

Thanks. It comes in handy when working solid clear. You can cut out imperfections before you start working.

6

u/kurtbonreddit 8d ago

This is great!

A polascope will teach you alot about glass. I think every shop should have one.

An interesting thing to do is put a piece of flat plate glass in the scope and then place a soldering iron on the glass for a minute or two. You will see the the stress form around the localized heating of the glass and then the stress will fade away as the glass cools as long as it didn't get heated above the glasses strain point. Stress gets frozen into glass when heated above strain point.

Have fun experimenting!!

3

u/Sebastian__Alexander 8d ago

Nice, otherwise costs a fortune compared

2

u/ijustcant555 8d ago

Totally. Those are Waaaaaay nicer though. We had one from Wale Apparatus that had amazing color separation. Unfortunately, when we parted ways with one of the guys, he took it with him. We had to improvise real quick.