scum from tile saw?

[Jon Wunderlich]

After cutting up pattern bars with my new tile saw they have a scummy surface that I thought I could clean off with wet sanding with 400 grit paper. I don't have a sand blaster so can I just coat these with Super Spray and fire or what? They do look a little cleaner after sanding but not like I'd hoped.

Thanks,

Jon

[Lisa Allen]

After cutting up pattern bars with my new tile saw they have a scummy surface that I thought I could clean off with wet sanding with 400 grit paper. I don't have a sand blaster so can I just coat these with Super Spray and fire or what? They do look a little cleaner after sanding but not like I'd hoped.

Thanks,

Jon

Yes, Super Spray will work, just clean them really well first. I use a Badger to apply the SS to get a really even coat.

Lisa

[Jon Wunderlich]

Thanks for the quick reply Lisa. What is a Badger (mouth aspirator/ atomizer?) and where can I get one? I have used one of those sponge paint brushes and it works ok but not perfect.

By the way, I love your work.

Do you trim the sides of your pieces after cutting them, or do they turn out strait? Mine are not strait at all. My dams (ceramic strips seven inches long by one & a half inches tall by about one third inch thick) were propped up by other strips and must have been pushed out of square when the glass flowed.

I'm considering aligning my pieces and filling the gaps with frit instead of cutting the one inch pieces so they are square or rectangle. I've escaped injury so far in this hobby and don't really want to get my fingers that close to the blade. Push stick maybe but still tricky.

Thanks,

Jon

[Lisa Allen]

Thanks for the quick reply Lisa. What is a Badger (mouth aspirator/ atomizer?) and where can I get one? I have used one of those sponge paint brushes and it works ok but not perfect.

By the way, I love your work.

Do you trim the sides of your pieces after cutting them, or do they turn out strait? Mine are not strait at all. My dams (ceramic strips seven inches long by one & a half inches tall by about one third inch thick) were propped up by other strips and must have been pushed out of square when the glass flowed.

I'm considering aligning my pieces and filling the gaps with frit instead of cutting the one inch pieces so they are square or rectangle. I've escaped injury so far in this hobby and don't really want to get my fingers that close to the blade. Push stick maybe but still tricky.

Thanks,

Jon

You can get a Badger at Michael's, it's just a little air gun that uses canned air as a propellant. Works great for Super Spray and costs about $25.

I usually trim the slab up all the way around before cutting my slices, then they all come out the same length. My fiber shelf is a bit warped and inevitably some of my slab seeps under the dams.

The tile saw sounds bad, but is really pretty safe as far as fingers are concerned. Mine have gone into the blade more than once and have come out unscathed, though it will trim your nails pretty quickly at the right angle

Lisa

[Cynthia]

Just to add to what Lisa said, The blade on a tile saw is a grinding disc, so it grinds rather than slices through the glass. You will get a good abrasion if you hold your finger against the blade, but it would be a trick to cut it. This is a nice function of this saw for Klutzy folk like me. Still, I would treat it like any other saw...with great respect and caution.

[Larry Lunsford]

I've made several pattern bar pieces (see my www). While the pattern bar slices look awful right off the tile saw, they always fire polishing nicely.

The only point were they sometimes do not fire polish well is where they have been in contact with shelf wash (which would be the edges of a PB slice). Even this has not been much of a problem.

As for cleaning them with sand paper, sand blasting, etc - how is this different than what the diamond blade has already done to the surface?

Larry

[Jon Wunderlich]

Thanks everyone for all the help,

Trimming the sides of the bars first makes sense. I'll have to do that on the pieces that aren't cut yet.

It's good to know the blade isn't as dangerous as a regular saw blade. I will still try to keep my fingers away from it.

Larry, I was thinking that since the 400 grit paper was finer it would smooth out the surface a little. Oh well so much for rookie theories.

I'll let my wife know if she looses her nail trimmers that I've got just the thing to take care of her, ha ha.

Thanks again,

Jon

[Kitty]

hi jon -- i dont have a tile saw, nor a place to use one, so i asked the guys at the local tile and stone yard to cut my pattern bars for me. i had they "true" them up first, then slice them 5/16". the bars were not trimmed to be totally true, just to knock off the spikes and major variances. in the lay-up of the plates, the gaps were filled with little tiny pieces of glass in some cases, and in others, like a repeating empty area between 4 slices, i filled with clear or a color. i did use frit in some areas, but it didn't fire completely smooth, and i dont think i'll try that again.

these particular plates will be sandblasted and then acid etched, so when everything is done, no evidence of the poor firing of the frit in gaps will show.

i just got back some more bars that the guys sliced for me, and these were less shaved, so i may have to grind them a little on my MAX to get the lay-up to be tighter.

[img]http://www.beachglasshawaii.com/graypb.jpg[/img]