And so the cutting begins…
Earlier in the week my classmates and I each found the time to stop by the glass store and choose the glass for our project. It’s amazing how different the same pattern can look when done with different colors and types of glass.
Last week we learned to cut. The glass we learned on was clear window pane style glass, the easiest glass in the world to cut. It has no bumps, no ridges, nothing that would impede your cutter from flowing with ease down your piece of glass.
Last night we made our first cuts into our purchased art glass. Let me tell you, it’s a lot scarier. You’ve paid good money for this glass and if you make too big of a mistake you could find yourself purchasing more!
The method we are using is to place your glass over your pattern, on a light box if necessary, and just cut but there are, of course, many other methods.
We began by numbering the different sections of our pattern and by writing in each an identifier as to which glass we’d be using. That just helps to avoid confusion and it also helps to ensure that you cut all the pieces in one color at the same time, which is more efficient than going back and forth with different colors of glass.
Your first step is to clean your glass. After each segment is cut, we grind it where necessary and then mark it with the corresponding number from the pattern. Additionally we put a dot on the pattern itself to indicate we’d already cut the piece.
Another thing you may want to do is to mark your sheet of glass with an arrow to identify the grain. This is important if you want the grain the same on all pieces within your project. If you window pane will have a front & a back, which it may have if, for example, you’ve added a beveled piece, then you will also want to identify it.
Last night was a bit challenging for me because one of my pieces of glass was slightly warped and kept moving around on the paper.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:22 am
always learning