[biomedfred]

I'm interested in attempting to melt glass and use it as an art material.  Somehow I got the idea of using magnesium to generate high temps capable of melting the glass.  From what I can tell from online research, magnesium isn't the cheapest of metals so I was trying to work out the chemistry involved to see how cost effective this could turn out to be.  I'm wanting to melt about 3 cubic inches of glass and I rememeber from my basic chem classes that there is a way to calculate how much magnesium I will need.  If anyone knows how to do this can you please help me out?  Or if I'm overlooking something major please feel free to point that out or possibly even recommending something other than magnesium.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[enahs]

The first thing is what kind of glass? There are a couple of "common" glass types.

There are special "low melting" glass's, as well as mid range and high range glass.

You can get special glass, I use it all the time, that will melt in a regular natural gas Bunsen burner flame. I specifically use pre-made straight glass tubes and bend them to various angles for making various apparatus for certain chemical reactions.

I would recommend trying it with low melting glass, as it will be much easier to control the temperature and the melting rate, and work with it, in a Bunsen burner or a torch. You can even heat metal up and drag it across the glass and melt where the metal touches, etc.

[biomedfred]

Actually I was wanting to use glass from old bottles (beer bottles, wine, ect.)  I can't seem to find the exact type of glass most of these are made from.  But I'm pretty sure they all would melt when exposed to the heat of burning magnesium.  I guess another question I have to throw out there is if anyone knows what type of glass these bottles are made from?

[invisiblegs]

Most bottle glass would be classified as "soda lime" glass, and has a low melting temperature.  Higher temperature glasses include borosilicate (Pyrex) and quartz glass.  Your idea of using a magnesium flame to melt glass is interesting, but there are easier ways to do it.  Most glass work is done with a gas and oxygen torch.  This really is the ideal setup in most cases because you can generate precise and directional heating at appropriate temperatures.  I'm not sure if you need the high temperatures generated by burning Mg, or how you would control the flame.  If you are going to melt glass of any kind, particularly soft glass, I would suggest at least a cursory look at the thermal stress properties of glass, it may save you some time and trouble.  Try this link for borosilicate glass on Wiki to get started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borosilicate_glass

[biomedfred]

So do you think you could you an oxy/acetylene cutting torch or would that not work?