What a difference in temperature today – now it’s humid & warm. We’re going to the Corning Glass Factory today to see America’s oldest and biggest glass makers. Their factory has several demonstrations of glass blowing, glass sculpting, glass breaking and glass technology.
As we arrived at the museum, we found free parking and children 17 and under were free to get in. (Isn’t that how it should be all the time? Especially since our teenagers are not technically adults until they are 18 – so why should all these places charge them adult prices? Every time I ask someone they don’t have an answer for me). J
Corning has classes that you can make your own glass and the kids were thrilled. They got to pick from several different types of glass projects: glass blowing, sculpting, welding, or engraving. Brandon, Brittany and Brooke all picked glass blowing – Brandon & Brittany made me flowers and Brooke made our family an ornament. The guy that was helping them gave them strict instructions about the fire and heat and how they will be molding and blowing the glass. They had to put on these fancy outfits of boots, aprons, glasses and hand mits.
They had so much fun making them. When they were done, the glass was still about 1000 degrees even though it had hardened, and they had to be put in an oven which was about 940 degrees and the glass will cool to room temperature overnight.
Corning is huge with the museum on the 2nd & 3rd floors, and the gift store on the first. They have four different glass demonstration shows. The first one we went to was on Glassblowing which is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe. With this technique a glass maker can create beautiful vases, glasses, bowls, etc. Out demonstrator made a beautiful orange colored vase.
Next we went to the glass technology demonstration of which most of it I didn’t understand because it was all about fiber optics and how glass plays apart in technology. What I did understand was that a single bandwidth of optic fiber can transmit more information than cooper wire because glass carries light signals and cooper carries electrical signals. Light signals are a million times greater than electrical frequency that cooper can carry. The higher frequency of light allows it to carry large amounts of information – billions of bits per second. Because electrical signals in long copper wires carry much less frequency, a large amount of wire equal the same bandwidth of a single glass optic fiber. Optic fibers are also able to carry information much farther distance which is why it is used in all of our high technology communications.
The next class we went to was on glass sculpting with a torch and she amazingly made this adorable little mouse in about 15 minutes. It was fascinating and I wish I could do that!!
The last class was on glass breaking.. She showed us the different stress points in different types of glass and what types of pressure cause it to break. Even though it sounds boring, it was quite fascinating.
The museum had information on how Corning got started, on the creation and machinery of the first bottles, on glass and the first televisions, how to get different colors in glass, the telescope, the lighthouse, glass bending, and the uses of glass. It was very well done. And of course we had to shop downstairs at their wonderful store!!! I’m so glad we made the journey this way to see one of America’s biggest glass makers.
When we got back to the KOA the kids had time to swim in their huge indoor pool. This was the first KOA pool that has been open and it’s nice and warm because it’s indoor. What a fun day!!
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