USC researchers in need of eccentric glass devices turn to Jim Merritt. Merritt’s title is "director of the glass shop," but for 38 years he has been a glassblower.

Most major research universities employ a glassblower, and Merritt, a former president of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society, said the profession’s national organization has about 800 members.

"Manufacturers still hand-blow all flasks 5 liters and up. It’s not automated," he said. "There's no machinery that can handle that amount of viscous glass; you have to keep constantly manipulating it."

Years ago, Merritt made 22-liter flasks for researchers on the Health Sciences Campus, but in general, the items he works on have been getting smaller and more complex. In his Seeley G. Mudd shop, on a worktable littered with the pieces of apparatus under construction and creations that didn’t quite work out, are the sketches from scientists.

"Whatever they draw up, I try to do," he said, squinting at a hand-drawn diagram.

While glass appears solid, it actually isn’t quite that simple to categorize. Some people describe glass as a supercooled liquid and others as a semi-viscous solid. Glass does not have a melting point. Instead, it softens over a fairly wide temperature range.

Common glass is made by heating a mixture of lime (calcium oxide), soda (sodium carbonate) and sand (silica or silicon dioxide). Test tubes and other laboratory glassware are usually made from a more temperature-resistant formula that incorporates some boron oxide. Corning’s brand name is Pyrex, which begins to soften at 1508 degrees Fahrenheit.

Merritt, however, works his magic at about 2260 degrees. Blowing air through a long rubber tube attached to the piece he is working on, Merritt flips the almost-liquid glass over and over in the oxygen and natural gas flame, distributing the heat evenly to avoid creating thin spots.

"If I didn’t keep it moving, it would drip right onto the floor," he said. Blowing glass does not take a lot of lungpower: "It’s all in the control."

When he’s done, the finished piece goes into an oven, where it is kept at 1050 degrees for 15 minutes and then allowed to cool slowly to 800 degrees.

"It has to anneal because flowing the glass disrupts its structure," Merritt explained.

On a recent day, Merritt was working from a diagram by Kurt A. Alberty, a chemistry doctoral student. Alberty is part of a group led by Thieo Hogen-Esch, professor of chemistry, that is researching new cyclic polystyrene, or plastic, materials.

"Pretty much with Jim, if you can draw it, he can make it," Alberty said. "He's absolutely fantastic and he pays attention to the aesthetic.

"The caveat is that he WILL make it just as you draw it, so you have to draw it correctly."

Sometimes researchers need apparatus made from quartz, which can withstand higher temperatures. Quartz, our planet’s most common mineral, is a crystalline form of silica that starts to soften at 2150 degrees. Using a hotter oxygen and hydrogen flame, Merritt heats the quartz to almost 3200 degrees to work it.

"That gets miserably hot," said the man with the hottest job at USC.