Drilling holes in glass

digitalkim01 · Post by **digitalkim01** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 10:42 pm

Can anyone offer advice for drilling small holes in glass? I have attempted it with a fine diamond bit on my dremel tool but

usually end up cracking the glass.

Brad Walker · Post by **Brad Walker** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 10:46 pm

Click on "Old Archive" at the top of the page and search on "drilling holes". You'll find literally hundreds of posts on the topic.

digitalkim01 · Post by **digitalkim01** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 10:51 pm

Yes there are. Thank you

Amy on Salt Spring · Post by **Amy on Salt Spring** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 12:16 am

I am in the middle of a piece which requires 1700 holes to be drilled. No you did not read that wrong--there are 425 squares with a hole on each side. What I would like to know is where I can find treatment for being the kind of person who designs a piece which requires me to drill 1700 holes. Seriously I need help.
Amy

hoknok · Post by **hoknok** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 1:06 am

Amy, with that many holes to drill, could you not farm it out to a commercial glass company? On big operations or time consuming tasks like yours, I usually find it cheaper to farm it out compared to my time to do it manually. They will usually have the bigger and faster machines anyway. I will also bury the outside cost into the price... or sometimes eat it just so that I can move on.

I figure the cost for visiting a therpist after such a job would equall the bill for outsourcing anyway.

Mira · Post by **Mira** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 3:19 am

I did a seven-foot tall glass windchime. It had fused koi with lots and lots of cut glass. Needless to say, I did about 400 or so holes -- all with dremel, water, and a light touch. Some of the glass broke, but hey, I was getting tired.

I learned a ton about running a marathon but nothing about being an athelete. Hmmmph!

Good luck Amy! I'd like to see your project when your done. I'll say a prayer to the glass godess that your tether doesn't snap.

Mira

Lauri Levanto · Post by **Lauri Levanto** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 4:35 am

Amy,

I think we have someone with a waterjet system. Ask him.
Is sandblasting an option?

-lauri

Amy on Salt Spring · Post by **Amy on Salt Spring** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 2:16 pm

Don't think I could farm this job out--too small and precise, I'd rather do it myself. Its not really too horrible--once you get into a rhythm you can get a lot done in a short time. I did almost 300 holes in several hours last week (thank heavens for the drill press) and as long as I space it out between doing other things I don't make myself too insane! I just keep coming up with these ideas that I fall in love with and never think, "That's crazy!" You'd think I would learn. Perhaps I will carve out a niche for myself as an artist who does things that no one else would ever put themselves through! I'll post a picture when its done!
-Amy

Carol Cohen · Post by **Carol Cohen** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 4:38 pm

Amy, when I found myself involved in a similar obsessive-compulsive behavior project, I bought a cheap (Woodworker's Warehouse) drill press, then got in touch with Starlite Industries (http://www.starliteindustries.com) and bought a water-feeding attachment for it. Then I could order their diamond hollow-core drills in a very small diameter (1/8") with a top that screws on to the attachment. For thin flat glass (1/8" thick) it takes about 3 seconds per hole.

Of course, I then had to rig up a table to hold the drill press near my sink, and get plastic tubing that could carry the water from my faucet, and another tube that carried the draining water to the sink, and a rubber apron because of the spray. And a shallow wide plastic basin to sit the drill press in to channel the draining water to the drain tube.

The drill press cost maybe $50 or 70 but can be used for other stuff. The water-feeding attachment cost about $68. Each core drill cost about $58 and lasted for hundreds and hundreds of holes. So it's not as cheap as dry-drilling with a Dremel, but if you're doing as many holes as it takes to fill the Albert Hall, you'll save your back, your sanity (should it still be intact at this point) and also $$, even if you charge yourself only the usual $.05/hr we discover we all do, for our labor.

So: are you making a quilt????

Carol

Amy on Salt Spring · Post by **Amy on Salt Spring** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 8:58 pm

I have a very similar setup except that my water feed is a bottle that must be refilled but I just fill lots of lots of containers with water and have them handy so I hardly ever have to stop and fetch more--it would be nice though if I could have a warm water feed as you must have. My husband built me a three sided box with a drain that the whole press sits inside which works great--the spray hits the sides of the box and me (I wear a raincoat!). The pieces are quite tiny so I must use a tiny drill bit-- 1.4mm to be exact and although its not super slow I am certainly taking longer than 3 seconds a hole! If I go too fast I have trouble with the back chipping out and the distance between the hole and the edge is not that far since the pieces are small. I have used core drill bits before and they do go much faster but they don't come that small for obvious reasons. I didn't even know you could dry drill--I would think the glass would break and you would end up with lungs full of glass dust. It is in fact a quilt--or will be...how did you know? Sanity is long gone--I'd say for about four years now, strangely enough that's just when I started working with glass!
Amy

Kim Bellis · Post by **Kim Bellis** » Mon Jan 05, 2004 9:42 pm

Amy:
I can't wait to see your piece. After it is done, I would say you deserve a weekend at the spa...
Kim

hoknok · Post by **hoknok** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 1:15 am

Hey Amy, can we see a photo of you and your raincoat working. How funny and cute. You are devoted to insanity. We all need insanity to a degree, its what keeps us sane... Working in a cubicle in dilbert world is true insanity!!!

Carol Cohen · Post by **Carol Cohen** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 11:32 am

Warm water??! You think I use warm water? I just suffer, and change clothes later. There you are in tropical Salt Springs and here I am where the low temp tomorrow night will be maybe 6 degrees. (Actually, I try to schedule my drilling for warmer months and my kiln use for colder, but it never works out that way.)

Forgot to mention: I wear an old rainjacket backwards, rubber gloves, and goggles. The apron, I discovered, directed all the front spray right down onto my sneakers. So I made a spray shield, only somewhat effective, out of 2 pieces of plexiglas duct-tape-hinged to make an L and that sits in front and to the side when I'm drilling and lifts right out when I have to clean out the glass trash, which are the little cores drilled out, tiny glass jujubes. I cut a dip in the side plexi piece so there's just enough room for my right hand to control the drill press rise & drop lever.

I'm telling you all this so you glass people who don't have to drill holes can picture how ridiculous we look. Maybe next year a full wetsuit and mask. Or drilling in bikini & flipflops. Calendar, here we come....

The box that the drill press stands in, is actually the bottom half of a wide Wal-mart plastic shallow storage container. I cut a hole in the bottom corner that would be downhill (prop for tilt), covered the hole with a bit of window screen (to keep the glass from getting into the drain system) and fastened a plastic funnel & tubing, which gets placed over & into the toilet when I'm working. The sink edge is too high for it. Incentive for short drill sessions.

When I wrote "dry drilling" I meant the kind of drilling one does squirting a bit of water on the area intermittently, not truly dry. But a lot less efficient than not having to be re-wetting.

I'm making some clothing-related pieces a similar way, except the glass pieces are fastened to metal mesh. Amy, if you are going to exhibit this vertically, keep in mind that the upper quilt squares and their holes will have to bear the weight of all of the lower ones.

1.4 mm is incredibly tiny, for a glass drill. Mine is about 3 mm o.d. But the larger hole is OK for my use, which is trying for a certain gritty industrial look.

I found that the hardest part of any project like this is losing some of the squares to inevitable breakage, so I drill the holes in the "blanks" first, before I slump, paint, sandblast etc. Less heartbreaking.

C.C.

Amy on Salt Spring · Post by **Amy on Salt Spring** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 3:57 pm

I like the spa idea--I've already mentioned it to my husband. As far as the picture is concerned--how I look when drilling is far too embarrassing to post! Carol's description fits pretty well. Believe me Carol I know about the upper pieces carrying the weight of the lower. If you check out the piece on the commission page of my website you will see why. Since each one of the 12 hanging lines of that piece weighed over 7 pounds I did a lot of experimenting to make sure the glass was strong enough to hold. In the case of what I am working on now each line weighs about 7 or 8 ounces so its not such a big deal. You would think that 1.4 mm is tiny but in fact it makes a hole big enough to fit quite thick wire which is what I am using. Salt Spring is not so balmy today--we actually have snow!! We usually get snow maybe two times in the winter and it only last for a day or two but today it is coming down and staying--a couple of inches so far. No one has the slightest idea of how to drive in the snow here and the driveways are impossible to get up and down when there is snow so everyone just stays home. Kind of funny to us after 11 winters in Minnesota where every day was like this for about 5 months! It will be gone in a day or two so we appreciate it more. The 60 foot pine trees that surround our house look so incredibly beautiful covered in snow. I may just spend a bit of today out looking at them instead of drilling holes--hey I will use any excuse to keep from drilling holes at this point!
Amy

Barbara Muth · Post by **Barbara Muth** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 4:32 pm

Amy on Salt Spring wrote:I am in the middle of a piece which requires 1700 holes to be drilled. No you did not read that wrong--there are 425 squares with a hole on each side. What I would like to know is where I can find treatment for being the kind of person who designs a piece which requires me to drill 1700 holes. Seriously I need help.
Amy

Amy, I just visited family in Florida. Of the 4 people I visited, 3 are currently suffering big time from repetitive motion disorders, a hand, a forearm and a shoulder. I got full blown big time carpal tunnel in less than 3 weeks time and after more than a year of trying other things we had to do surgery on both hands five years ago. I am a stong advocate of farming work out to people who have the equipment and knowhow to get it done without hurting themselves. Take lots of rests and don't drill every day...

wishing you the best of health and a successful commission!
Barbara

Amy on Salt Spring · Post by **Amy on Salt Spring** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:58 pm

Surgery--ouch! I will keep that in mind. I'm trying to space it out just not to make myself crazy but I will take spacing it out more seriously now. Thanks!
Amy

jerry flanary · Post by **jerry flanary** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:48 pm

Ahhhhhhhh... Warm water; it's so nice you almost forget that you are cold working.... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....