Off Hours: Gerry Diebold - chemist, glassblower

by Kate Bramson

Gerry Diebold's "Chemical Bird Thing" perches majestically on a filing cabinet behind his desk in Room 231 of the Geo-Chem Building.

The Brown chemist created the orange neon bird after renewing his interest in glass blowing.

Diebold - whose academic work focuses on the photoacoustic effect, quantum interference effects and molecular photodissociation - began experimenting with scientific glass blowing back in high school. He has just gotten back into the artistry in the past year or so.

Getting back up to speed hasn't been easy, but Diebold enjoyed creating the bird now sitting in his office and the elaborate glass tubes that glow blue from mercury and purple from argon in his living room and the lab where he blows glass at Brown.

"It took a while to be as good as I was in high school again," he said. "Fortunately, you don't forget it all."

Basic glass blowing requires little in the way of equipment - some inexpensive torches, an oxygen tank and regulator, and some glass will get you started.

The rest is all patience - and countless burned fingers, Diebold says.

But it also helps to have someone teach you what to do with the glass that you heat so much it turns into a liquid. Professional glass blowers serve a five-year apprenticeship before working alone, he says.

Diebold began learning the art form back in high school while attending a summer science session at Indiana University. When everyone else in the program headed to the research lab, Diebold persuaded the university to let him work with the scientific glass blowers - two real pros, he recalls.

Now, because Diebold works in the lab that used to be occupied by Brown's scientific glass blower, he has much more than the basic equipment at his fingertips. There's a lathe that can hold a large piece of glass and rotate it far more uniformly than a glass blower could do by hand, and a condenser that helps in the vital cooling process.

When Diebold sends about 10,000 volts of electric current into the glass tubes of "Chemical Bird Thing" and other creations, the noble gases trapped inside the vacuum-tight glass light up.

Once completed, Diebold must label each project as dangerous. "You learn real early that your first mistake is your last one," he said, "so you're real careful.... Everything has to be exactly right."

But Diebold doesn't devote too much time to mastering the technique.

"It takes a lot of time to do this, which is something I don't have," he said, explaining why his glass artwork collection is limited to just a few pieces.

Not to mention that what he creates is "fragile as heck" and can break easily with one wrong move. The critical part of "Chemical Bird Thing," for instance, cracked and wouldn't hold the vacuum the first time he made it.

Maybe it's just that challenge of seeking perfection that keeps Diebold going back to the lab.

"I've never really walked away saying, 'I know how to make this seal,'" he said. "I'm always experimenting. ... Some of the guys do it really fast. It's a real art."

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