Scientific Glassblowing Laboratory (Glass Shop)

Sterling Chemistry Lab room 14
225 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT

Front entrance faces Sloan Physics Lab. Go through the front door and foyer, then turn right, walk a short distance, turn left, go up a few steps, pass through the double doors and go down the hall. Room 14 is the last room on the right.

Examples of our offerings include adapters, bubblers, bump traps, chromatography columns, condensers, dry-storage jars, filtration funnels, flasks, Kjeldahl traps, Schlenk ware, and vacuum traps. See our products page for more.

Products page 

To order, use PPMS.

Take a class on glass.

Glass properties

How to tell if an unknown glass is borosilicate without leaving the lab

• Borosilicate glass can be readily identified by its refractive index, 1.474.
• By immersing the glass in a container of a liquid of similar refractive index, the glass will disappear.
• Such liquids are:
  • Mineral oil
  • Dry benzene-methanol mixture, 84:16 (v/v) at room temperature
  • Anhydrous glycerol

How to identify if an O-ring is Viton

Viton floats in perchloroethylene. If it sinks, it’s not Viton.

Glass filter designations

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Years ago, it was very common for chemists to perform their own glassblowing. It wasn’t until 1924 that any record was found of Yale chemists utilizing a glassblower, when a contract with an external provider was arranged with a Mr. Greiner. 

The Sterling Chemistry Laboratory was built in 1923. In 1926, Franklin Pierce Noble was hired and worked in SCL room 10. Mr. Noble served the Chemistry department for 30 years until 1956. Then James Panczner served from 1957–1959, followed by Stanley Mezynski 1960–1961.

By 1961, Yale expanded its glassblowing service by adding a shop in the Sloane Physics building and hiring Ed Brosius. In Chemistry, Ralph Stevens was hired. Further expansion saw the addition of a shop in Mason Laboratory for the Engineering and Applied Science Department in 1964 with the hire of Henk Vanderguow from Europe. Mr. Vanderguow served from 1964–1970, then the shop at Mason Lab was closed.

Mr. Brosius served from 1961–1989, and Mike Olson took his place from 1989–1991.  At this point, the Sloane Physics shop was closed.

Scientific glassblowing remains a vital component of the research effort in the Chemistry Department where Mr. Stevens served from 1961–1995, in 1968 moving from room SCL 10 to room SCL 14 where it is currently housed.

After Mr. Stevens retired in 1995, he was replaced by Robert Wallace, who left Yale in 2004.

In 2005, the Chemical Research Building opened, and that year also saw the hiring of the present glassblower, Daryl Smith. The work load increased with the addition of orders from the University of Connecticut and other customers. This necessitated the hiring of a second, assistant glassblower. So Preston Smith was hired January 2017.

Research for this article was performed mainly by reviewing the Yale University Directory located in the Manuscripts and Archives Department of the Sterling Memorial Library. Exact years may be approximated by one year, earlier or later.