Monday, January 24, 2011

Sea Glass Machine

Sea Glass has an interesting look and feel that you can either collect or use for some projects. The problem is that those projects usually have to be fairly small given the size and volume of the glass you can find. This is not exactly a simple solution to the quantity issue, but is much faster and easier then the alternative (or normal way of just collecting what you find)

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/beachglass

"In the process of making a garden path which stretches 50 feet long and is 2.5 feet wide, I thought, how cool would that look if it were some sort of mosaic of sea glass! Snapping back to reality I realized how much time would be required to collect that much sea glass and got discouraged. But (eureka!) you can make your own. All you need is some glass, some sand, sea water and some way of mimicking the ocean and (bam!) you get sea glass.

I wanted to do large volumes, so I borrowed my uncle's cement mixer to mimic the ocean. The steel fins inside mimic large rocks. I started breaking wine bottles into small pieces and stole some sand from the kids play box, adding it all to the mixer. Since I didn't have any sea water handy I just filled it with tap water and turned it on. After an hour I checked and the sharp edges were all broken off, after two hours there was some frosting and smoothing and after 4 hours et voilĂ -- I had sea glass! With the capacity of the mixer I will have my garden path in no time. I plan on experimenting with other media and time duration and will report on my progress in the future.
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Head to the source for some screen shots to help you with the process of making your own.

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