By Judy Purdy
jpurdy@uga.edu

Ricky Harrison, glass-blowing shop manager

Ricky Harrison manages UGA’s glass-blowing shop, a unit of the Office of Research Services that is located in room 337 of the chemistry building. He explained the shop’s mission and procedures for Columns.

Columns: What do you do?

Harrison: We fabricate, modify and repair a variety of standard and custom, one-of-a-kind scientific glassware for the UGA research community. Often we can make commercial-type glassware that saves UGA researchers time and money. Right now Brian Markowicz (a glass blower III) is making standard condensers used in distilling to supply Campus Scientific Stores. It takes 30 to 45 minutes to make a condenser and costs $38, which is about half the price of a commercial supplier.

We make repairs on-site for things such as vacuum lines, to reduce the chance of leaks, and for equipment that’s fixed or too large to transport. We also offer a pick-up service.

Columns: How long has UGA offered glass-blowing services?

Harrison: Howard Epperson started the shop in 1960 and he ran it until he retired in 1984. He came to UGA from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I started as an apprentice under Howard in 1975. I was out of high school and looking for a career.

Columns: What’s the most unusual glass-blowing project you’ve worked on?

Harrison: That’s a tough one, because the departments that request our help are all so different. Some of the simplest things can be amazingly hard. For one research project we made specialized rat feeders. The researchers brought us a commercial feeder and wanted it duplicated. They weighed the bottles before and after each feeding so they wanted them to be as close as possible to the same weight.

There are many different kinds of glassware needs and it’s rewarding to know your work is contributing to new knowledge.

Columns: What are the hardest kinds of projects?

Harrison: Usually it’s when we do multiple “jackets”—or seals—on glass that has multiple ports. It’s hard to keep the glass from cracking, especially if it’s real thick. You have to heat the glass and that puts stress on it; sometimes when you’re almost done, it cracks and you have to start all over. It also can make you nervous to be working on a glass piece that might cost $5,000 and you’re trying to repair it. We tell the customer that there’s a chance the equipment can break when we heat it to a high temperature. We have to keep glass hot until we’re finished and then we have to cool it down gradually in an oven. Since it’s already broken, most of the time it’s no good to the researchers like it is, so they’re usually willing to take the risk. We could be saving them a lot of money if we can fix it.

Columns: What’s the biggest frustration?

Harrison: A bad day when things aren’t going right. You work hard on a project and it cracks and you have to start over.

Columns: What’s the range of time projects can take?

Harrison: Anywhere from 15 minutes for a small job to two weeks for one with multiple components. On big projects you have to stage your work so you’re at a quitting point at the end of the day.

Columns: What’s the biggest advantage of having glass-blowing capabilities on campus?

Harrison: The ability for researchers to get glassware for their exact needs and specifications. Researchers can talk to us about what they need and we can design and blow glassware equipment for special applications with a quick turnaround and at a reasonable cost.

Columns: Do most research universities offer glass-blowing services?

Harrison: Many do. Some of the smaller schools used to but don’t any more. In some universities glass blowers work for the chemistry department, but we work for the whole university. We also do projects for other universities, federal agencies such as the EPA, and private companies such as Noramco, a pharmaceutical branch of Johnson and Johnson. We charge by the hour and projects outside the university are billed at a higher rate.

Columns: How many people work at the shop?

Harrison: There are three of us. Brian Markowicz has a glass- blowing degree from Salem College in New Jersey. It’s the only school in the country that teaches scientific glass blowing as far as we know. Patricia Kelley is the senior accounting assistant.