Glass balance spring>>>
Hello, In attempts to combat problems of magnetism, in the early 1800's, a few makers tried using glass in place of the steel balance spring and even in place of the balance. Most notably, the firms of Arnold & Dent and the house of Breguet experimented w...
On a different scale, I remember reading that the make concrete springs >>>
I remember reading in a magazine that some parasismic building use springs made of concrete, as on a big scale (each spring is about 2 or 3 meters in diameter - 7-10 feet), the concrete has the same elastical properties as steel, or even better. But the g...
Glass- a very workable material
Years ago I used to do glass blowing and glass springs are probably far easier to make than you might think. As a matter of fact, I think one of the (unmentioned) reasons that they were used for a short while during the middle of the 1800s was ease of man...
Winding a glass spring
Glass is amazing stuff! I've been around the art glass scene for the last 35+ years, a buddy is a very successful glassblower. He's doing big cast pieces now, he batches and pours 1 1/2 tons of glass 3 times a week doing lots of architectural stuff. He ha...
Way cool! very interesting thread. does anyone happen to know
the resiliency and elasticity characteristics of the glass formulation we are talking about vis a vis the equivalent metallic balance spring? Does glass suffer from "fatigue" like metal does? deformation during "breathing?" Other materials qualities that ...
An all glass clock (gears too!)
I went back and checked if the all glass clock was still up on the internet .All the parts including gears and escapement are of glass, and the Swiss watch museum it is in is in La Chaux des Fonds. More can be read about this interesting clock at http://s...
