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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1988)
UNL expert blows glass » Burning ambition spans 40 years By Brandon Loomis Staff Reporter Even after more than 40 years of ex perience, a University ofNebra ska-Lincoln scientific glass blower has found that he can still bum his hands. Picking at some dead skin on his finger, Kurt Greiner said he still bums himself frequently. But the bums rarely require more than cold water and a bandage, he said. But recently, while assembling a small crystal-growing dish by hand, he crossed his arms in front of his bench burner’s 1,200-degree Celsius flame. “I burned my lower arm so bad I had to go to a doctor,” he said. Greiner grew up in Thuringia, East Germany, where he helped assemble skin massage electrodes in his father’s glass shop before World War II. Greiner escaped from East Germany in 1949. He served as apprentice to master glass blowers in Europe, where, he said, training is more rigid than in the United States. After decades of working for several glass and researching companies, including Weyerhauser in Tacoma, Wash., he brought his expertise to UNL in 1986. Now he fills his Hamilton Hall lab with anything from test tubes to thousand-dollar researching instruments — items he makes and repairs for the chem istry and other U NL departments. Greiner has assembled a water distilling system, vital to many chemistry experi ments. Jac-Ho Kim, a graduate assistant in the chemistry department, said Greiner’s sys tem is mucn more valu able than the lesscxpen sive purifiers used by most universities. “We believe this water is more pure,” he said. Greiner said his puri fier, which took about 30 hours to make, cost the chemistry depart ment about $2,500, compared to a S900 commercial system. The purifier consists of coiled glass tubing through which impure water is pumped into the system, heated and vaporized. The vapor then is condensed and filtered into a 12-gallon collection jug. One gal lon of distilled water is produced every five hours. Greiner said he starts with commercial glass tubing and uses a natural gas and oxygen flame to heat the material to a melting point of 1,200 degrees Celsius. He then twists the tubing slowly and carefully because is easy to break the glass by twisting or pulling too hard, he said. “You have to always be one step ahead of what’s going to happen,” he said. “You have to think ahead ot the glass.” Mistakes are permanent and happen too quickly to be corrected, he said. When making parts that will be in con tact with heating elements, Greiner said he uses quartz silica, which has a higher melt ing point than normal glass— about 2,000 degrees Celsius. The quartz silica is more resistant to constant heal within the machin ery, he said. To melt the quartz silica, Greiner uses a hydrogen and oxygen flame because it burns hotter than the natural gas flame. A ventilation hood such as one above an oven must be used when working with quartz silica because melting silica releases poisonous gases, he said. When projects require the end of the tubing to be rounded, Greiner hooks a thin rubber hose to the cool end of the tube and blows gently through it as he heats the other end. Greiner also has made a vacuum mani fold for the chemistry department. Kim said the pump is necessary for experiments in drying liquids because healing liquids into vapor can decompose some of the matter. Greiner also repairs glass instruments on expensive machines such as the chemistry department’s mass spectrometer. Roger Hayes, assistant director of the Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry, said the machine determines exact mass analysis and structure confirmation of or ganic, bio-organic and inorganic gas and liquid samples. Hayes said Greiner saves the center thousands of dollars by sealing fractures in parts that would otherwise need to be reor dered. Having a glass blower around also saves time, Hayes said. “It takes him a day to fix something that would take us several months'tdget in,’’ he - laid. ’ I (\ r.. Grciofr said he uses a hanfi|dtoc£4>urncr, smaller than the lab’s bench burner, to seal fractures on large machinery such as the mass spectrometer because the hand burner allows him to reach lighter comers. Hayes said that in addition to repairing commercially made equipment on the mass spectrometer, Greiner has made sample introduction interfaces. These interfaces are glass parts through which samples arc introduced to the machine. He also makes sample storage flasks for the machine. Hayes said this loo has saved the university money. Although Greiner spends about 40 hours a week making and maintaining research equipment for UNL, he said he is some times hired through the university to do work for the private sector. Greiner was preparing to fix a broken seal on a 12-gallon jug from a dairy farm April 1. He said for larger items such as the jug he uses a lathe burner because it is impossible to hold and rotate the glass over the bench burner’s flame by hand. Greiner said he enjoys helping private businesses. But he will have little time for it once four new chemistry ."acuity members arrive on campus this summer and fall because they probably will requesting even more equipment repairs, he said. “My work load will considerably in crease,” he said. ‘You have to always be one step ahead of what’s going to hap pen. You have to think ahead of the glass. ’ —Greiner -. Greiner did not always want lo be a glass blower. As a child, when he had lo help his father in the glass shop and was unable to play with other children, he said, he devel oped a strong dislike for indoor work. He said he dreamed of becoming a forester. Thai dream was fused with his glass blowing background in 1974 when he was hired to make researching instruments for die Weyerhauser wood- and paper-product company. Bui since his youth, Greiner said, he has thrown to love glass. 4 < “I thiqk it is the most fantastic substance •Ja die world/’ he said-, bending a glass coil r*' *1 # back and forth to demonstrate its flexibility. Greiner said his lab, ful! of lathes, torches and grinders, enables him to ma nipulate glass in almost any way he wants. “This is one of the nicest glass-blowing facilities you can find,” he said. Sometimes, Greiner said, he takes ad vantage of the lab to make a chime, a trinket or Christmas-tree ornaments. Above: Greiner holds a sample of scientific glass. Upper left: Greiner rounds the glass while he blows through the cool end of the tubing and heats the opposite end. Lower left: Greiner smooths the end of a tube with a bench burner. Photos by J. P. Caruso.