Mixing Sand Batches for making glass at KOG Glass Studios in Kokomo

We've begun doing some glass batching in our material science course at Princeton High School, so far doing it as a class activity not yet as an individual student activity.

In our experiments, we use a recipe of sand (silica or flint), sodium carbonate, boric acid, and a metal oxide. Our mix totals 139 grams, enough to half fill a Denver crucible. We don't want to overfill and overflow that crucible because then we're destroying our kiln's liner.

The recipe in the video above makes a little more glass than ours does but is generally the same ingredients: silica, soda (sodium dioxide), lime (calcium dioxide - we don't use this, admittedly), and metal oxides to provide color to the glass.

I'm a little surprised to see the measuring and shoveling being done without any dust masks. Silicosis is no joke.