by: John M. Hill
The temperature is now up to 935 ° C. We have been spinning
happily all day at 6.8 rpm. All the glass blocks have now been melted into
a big pool of glass about 6-inches thick. In another 100 degrees or so the
viscosity will be low enough to start running down into the gaps between the
cores that will become the ribs.
It's been quite a party here at the Mirror Lab today. Somewhere around
2000 people have been through the lab today.
We've got some quasi-live GIF images on the Mirror Lab web page so
you can watch the pool of glass smooth out. The pictures from Camera A, B
and C are updated every hour or so.
The Mirror Lab casting web page is at:
http://mirrorlab.as.arizona.edu//lbtcast.html
The images directly (sans explanation) are in:
http://mirrorlab.as.arizona.edu/oven/
Maximum temperature is still scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Back to LBT Casting News