Flame polishing is a method of polishing a material, usually thermoplastics or glass, by exposing it to a flame or heat. By melting the surface of the material, surface tension smooths the surface out. Operator skill is critical with this method. When done properly, flame plastic polishing produces the clearest finish, especially when polishing acrylic. This method is most applicable to flat external surfaces. Flame polishing is frequently used in acrylic plastic fabrication because of its high speed when compared to abrasive methods. In this application, a torch burning hydrogen and oxygen is typically used, one reason being that the flame chemistry is unlikely to contaminate the plastic.
Flame polishing is essential to creation of the glass pipettes used for the patch clamp technique of voltage clamping.
|
| This glass engineering or glass science related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Famous quotes containing the words flame and/or polishing:
“It might become a wheel spoked red and white
In alternate stripes converging at a point
Of flame on the line, with a second wheel below,
Just rising, accompanying, arranged to cross,
Through weltering illuminations, humps
Of billows, downward, toward the drift-fire shore.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)