Glass grinding with silicon carbide by hand

[Peter Angel]

Dear all,

I have found an excellent step-by-step tutorial on how to hand grind glass with silicon carbide.

It's by His Glassworks.

I found this very useful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDUpXGkC0g

Peter

[S.TImmerman]

Thank you, I wish they'd post one on beveling...using their tools .

[JestersBaubles]

Thank you, I wish they'd post one on beveling...using their tools .

Check the youtube page -- he does have a video of working with a flat lap. I watched it months ago... can't remember if he specifically talks about beveling, but it is generally good information.

The saw blade video is timely for me, since I just purchased an similar MK (7" instead of 10"). Looks like I bought one of the better blades, too!

Dana W.

[Babette (Shawn)]

I am setting up a work table for glass grinding using silicon carbide on float glass. I called my local glass shop and I can get a piece of 24" by 24", 3/8th inch thick float glass, beveled edge for pretty cheap. My question is; Is it necessary to sand blast the float glass before using it the first time? Will sandblasting the float glass help the grit to stick slightly to the float glass and make for more friction? Is there a significant advantage to sandblasting the glass? I took a class recently where they sandblasted the float glass before we used it (new piece of glass) I watched the His Glassworks (Bob Stephens) video and it doesn't appear that he uses a sandblasted piece of float glass. I imagine that any slickness on the surface of the float glass will get abraded pretty quickly...

[Alexis Dinno]

My question is; Is it necessary to sand blast the float glass before using it the first time? Will sandblasting the float glass help the grit to stick slightly to the float glass and make for more friction?

The float glass will also be shaped by grinding. When you use a coarser grit, the float will obtain a coarse surface. And when you use a finer grit, this will smooth out the float. Sandblasting would thus be superfluous, since whatever texture it produces will be revised.

[Morganica]

And to add to what Alexis said, the grit will stick just fine if you're on a level surface--you really don't use enough water to send the grit dripping off the edges unless you're pretty violent about it. You do want to give your piece a lot of grinding room--that will lessen the spillover.

Also, try to keep the piece (and grit) moving evenly across the entire surface of the glass as much as possible. It's extremely tempting to put a lot of weight on the piece and concentrate on really intense, back-and-forth grinding, but you'll be creating peaks and valleys in your float surface. The whole point of glass-to-glass grinding is keeping things really flat.

Eventually, you'll wear a trench in the center of the float, no matter what you do...then you flip the glass over and start again.

[Tom Fuhrman]

If you are really picky, you will need separate pieces of glass for each grit as it is very difficult to get all the grit off of the thick plate when you want to switch to a different grit. By doing this you can avoid getting a some deeper scratches after you have tried to achieve a finer polish.

[Babette (Shawn)]

Thanks so much for the advice, I will not bother to sandblast the float glass!

I am wondering if anyone has advice on the size of the grit (or grits) I should have on hand to use for grinding on float glass? My goal is to remove the irregularities from previous firings on fiber paper. I hope to prepare my glass for slumping and avoid an extra kiln firing to polish. Thanks,

Shawn