You can't blame Scott Bankroff for working up a sweat at his job.
The MSU master glassblower spends 20 to 30 hours a week with his face a few feet from a natural gas torch where temperatures can reach up to 1,700 degrees Celsius. The sweltering lab where he works is filled from floor to ceiling with completed projects and hundreds of glass tubes used to mold future products.
"It makes your face a little red," he said, wiping away the beads of sweat dotting his face, which was painted by the smoldering flames from molding a gas reaction vessel for the MSU School of Packaging.
For 23 years, Bankroff has been a full-time employee of the MSU Scientific Glassblowing Laboratory, the university's source for glass products, for more than four decades. The laboratory supplies all departments in need of glass materials.
This is a cheaper and faster alternative to ordering through large companies, he said.
"We're what I call a full-service facility. Anything to do with glass, we've got the tools," Bankroff said. "We work for the whole university. We've done everything for everyone, from the art department to zoology."
Bankroff and his assistant, psychology and civil engineering senior Mathew Puskar, man the lab.
The duo take existing products and heat them to temperatures high enough to mold them into new materials.
"We also do repairs, primarily for the chemistry labs," Puskar said.
Puskar became interested in glassblowing after attending a renaissance festival.
While the laboratory offers its services to the entire MSU community — and occasionally outside contractors such as the city of East Lansing — most work orders come from graduate students and professors in the chemistry and engineering departments.
Chemistry Professor James McCusker calls upon the glassblowing lab a couple of times a week for repairs and new materials.
"They do good work," he said. "It facilitates research because the cost of materials. It has the advantage that if you have a lot of research involved, they can tailor a piece of equipment, making it very advantageous for us."
This type of glassblowing laboratory is common at highly scientific colleges, Puskar said.
"Seventy to 80 colleges have this kind of program," he said, citing the University of Michigan and Wayne State University as examples.
For Bankroff, who learned the trade in the '70s while working for a factory in Wheeling, Ill., the heat and sweat are all part of a day's work for a scientific glassblower.
"I don't mind coming into work. It's different all the time," he said. "I look at it as a profession. When somebody comes in with something, we're ready to do it."
