Quartz as wick?

[twgbonehead]

I got with my wife and she said the person that makes her crysral jewelry sources itcalready cut from different soueces, so no quartz scraps... dang! But she did say #what about Hobby Lobby?" In the bead section there is a tube of small maybe 1/2 long hollow glass tubes.TINY! About as big around as a syringe needle.Ill take a pic when I get home. It could work. Il test.

Quite a while ago I got some pyrex capillaries to try. They will melt in a head (perhaps not if there's e-liquid on them). Then again, I was looking at a design where the coil was wrapped around the outside of the tube, and the e-liquid went through the middle.

Another possible concern is thermal expansion, which could cause the tubes to shatter. The coefficient of expansion is much much smaller (by about a factor of 20) for fused quartz vs. soda-lime, and about a factor of 7 vs. pyrex (borosilicate).

 

[GMayberry]

While, quartz does exhibit the Piezo Effect and has some neat electrical properties; it is an insulator.


The Quartz Page: Physical Properties

No it isn't.

Resistivity of Quartz

In fact it is more of an insulator than glass is, by a factor of up to ten million.

To this, I stand corrected! I am quite a few years beyond school and memory obviously didn't serve me well on this one.

 

[GMayberry]

This is what bothers me.

How is the buyer going to know if the thing is real quartz or just glass??

I see ft in china has kayfun 'quartz' tanks on sale, but I'm assuming is just a mistranslation and it's just probably glass tanks, so if there becomes a demand for 'quartz' wicking, I expect there's going to be a bunch of glass passing for quartz, just as there's a lot of soldered nr-r-nr being passed around as 'welded' wire.

You really are hung up on this whole glass thing aren't you? If this thread is bothering you, there are a few others you can go dispute instead.

 

[GMayberry]

Quite a while ago I got some pyrex capillaries to try. They will melt in a head (perhaps not if there's e-liquid on them). Then again, I was looking at a design where the coil was wrapped around the outside of the tube, and the e-liquid went through the middle.

Another possible concern is thermal expansion, which could cause the tubes to shatter. The coefficient of expansion is much much smaller (by about a factor of 20) for fused quartz vs. soda-lime, and about a factor of 7 vs. pyrex (borosilicate).

The samples I have coming are fused quartz.

 

[suspectK]

I have a couple little pieces of quartz lying around...

 

[GMayberry]

I have a couple little pieces of quartz lying around...

I think someone may be able to test this before me!!

Wait.... that might just be GLASS so be careful! hehe

 

[GMayberry]

I got with my wife and she said the person that makes her crysral jewelry sources itcalready cut from different soueces, so no quartz scraps... dang! But she did say #what about Hobby Lobby?" In the bead section there is a tube of small maybe 1/2 long hollow glass tubes.TINY! About as big around as a syringe needle.Ill take a pic when I get home. It could work. Il test.

If they aren't fused quartz I wouldn't try them. They will probably shatter as soon as you fire your coil.

 

[suspectK]

 

[GMayberry]

Here is someone who actually cut a quartz rod down to size. Looks great with a twisted coil!

Quartz rod as wick - Imgur

 

[GMayberry]

View attachment 358611

Wow! Just curious, how much and what for? (not being sarcastic, I truly am curious about both!)

 

[suspectK]

It was free.. from the Earth.. it's like 30 lb's.

 

[GMayberry]

It was free.. from the Earth.. it's like 30 lb's.

You actually walked up on that somewhere? Very nice find! It is beautiful!

 

[rurwin]

Those sort of things, full of flaws and breaks, aren't too expensive even if you buy them. Maybe a few tens of UK pounds; add 50% for dollars. The perfectly formed points with no flaws are worth considerably more, well into the hundreds for a large specimen. The sort of thing we need would be pennies.

 

[suspectK]

You actually walked up on that somewhere? Very nice find! It is beautiful!

That's actually less than half of what it use to be. It had a fascinating T shaped termination, almost floating on one of the large terminations. After it was left at my house, it had 3 moves..and my parents threw it in storage in between the last one...it's still cool, but it use to be a brilliant piece of nature's art.

 

[edyle]

What its about is high temperature, non-electrical-conducting, inert, capillary tubes.
Whether it's made of 'quartz', pyrex, or some opague capillary rods, doesn't matter.

 

[vapdivrr]

Here is someone who actually cut a quartz rod down to size. Looks great with a twisted coil!

Quartz rod as wick - Imgur

the quartz in that pic is probably not much different to the porous ceramic wicks which use to produce the best flavor of any wick I have ever used.

 

[edyle]

Here is someone who actually cut a quartz rod down to size. Looks great with a twisted coil!

Quartz rod as wick - Imgur

Quartz rod as wick

Pure quartz rod as wick. 4.5mm diameter, solid silica. Lol, works great. This is a twisted 24g vertical coil, ohmed out at 0.45. Surface tension keeps the wick wet, twisted wire helps that too. A one-hit ramp up time, but really plumes once it gets going. There is a safety concern when cutting the rod to size. Mineral silica (quartz) dust is a known carcinogen, so I kept it nice and wet while cutting and wore a respirator to avoid inhaling the dust produced. Call me paranoid but I prefer to be on the safe side.

The description describes it as 'solid silica'.
This looks completely different from the glass tubes in the first photos.

 

[GMayberry]

The description describes it as 'solid silica'.
This looks completely different from the glass tubes in the first photos.

It is in fact different from the *quartz tubes in the first set of photos. I could also post pictures of someone using a raw quartz crystal, those too would look different. A solid rod, a capillary tube, and a raw crystal will all look differently.

 

[NahkriinKrosis]

Forgive me, but I am missing your contribution to my question.....

Sorry G,

JeremyR is the gent who 'pioneered' the rayon movement. Tbev and brian were very avid in the rayon thread as well.

And the rest my friend, is history.

 

[twgbonehead]

What its about is high temperature, non-electrical-conducting, inert, capillary tubes.
Whether it's made of 'quartz', pyrex, or some opague capillary rods, doesn't matter.

Actually, although experiments with capillary tubes are in the works, all the wicks shown so far have been using solids (either rods or crystals).

And you can't say "high-temperature" and then say it doesn't matter whether it's quartz or pyrex - quartz is a much higher-temperature material, and in a range that matters. The melting point of pyrex isn't much different than soda-lime (it does have a lower coefficient of thermal expansion, which makes it better for things like baking dishes). An orange-hot coil will melt pyrex, and even if it just softens it, it gets very brittle (from lack of annealing).