The question everyone asks: How can you melt glass with sunshine?

by Tawny Reynolds || January 09 2018
How can you melt glass with sunshine?

Whenever I'm telling someone about Sundrop Jewelry I invariably get the question: "Wait, what do you mean - sun-melted glass??"⠀

Actually, I mean exactly that!

Tawny Reynolds next to the giant magnifying glass she uses to focus sunshine and create Sundrop Jewelry

 

I use a giant magnifying glass to focus sunshine to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (for reference, most types of glass melt at around 1,600°).  The focused light makes a hot spot about 1 cm wide, and I use it to melt strips of bottle glass and stained glass into dainty, elegant teardrops. The end of the glass strip starts to melt in the hot spot, then, pulled by gravity, starts to drip and cools in the air.⠀It doesn't get more eco-friendly than that!

 Melting glass with sunshine and a giant magnifying glass

 

Want to see the giant magnifying glass in action? Check out some videos here.