relief carving in glass?

[ron_churches]

Hi,

I have a potential customer who is interested in having an image of a local lighthouse carved in a piece of 1/4" glass. I've searched for information both here and at the Vectric forum and have been unable to find what I'm looking for. I did find a lot of info on the Widgetworks diamond drag bit and have ordered one, but from what I've read will probably not work for what the customer is asking (they mentioned "depth" and "detail"). Has anyone had any experience with doing (shallow) reliefs from a photograph in annealed glass? I did see a website where glass was being etched with some type of v-bit in a spindle (I have a PC 7518 router).

Thanks,
Ron

[myxpykalix]

I don't think you can do what you want to do in glass. You could do it in plastic but glass is too brittle. I understand you want to do a relief carving in the glass and glass will not allow you to cut down into it or cut across the surface without major stresses that will break it or chip it. But then again...i could be wrong! :rolleyes:

Now plastic is a different story or corian (does it have to be clear?)

If you wanted to get industrious i could see how you could make a mold from wood and work with a glass blower in some way they could form the "carving" in the mold?

[mtylerfl]

Hi Ron,

Many years ago, I did several "deep sandblasting" projects in 1/2" and 5/8"-thick glass. The glass is masked (I used a 3M brand masking material which was quite thick)and blasted in 3 or 4 stages to yield a relief carved appearance. I recall it required learning a new way of thinking, because you are essentially working in reverse and there can be a good deal of planning how/where the masking is removed at the various stages during the blasting process.

I used silicon carbide (kind of expensive) as my blasting material, and a rather small air compresser and hopper (wrong equipment for this kind of work!). I went through several ceramic and steel nozzles on each project...the silicon carbide just ate 'em up. Nevertheless, I was able to get the job done, albeit somewhat tedious with the equipment I was using.

It will be interesting to hear if it is possible to "relief-carve" glass with a CNC tool. My first thought is "no", but who knows?!

[lalogiagorral]

Ron
The only you can do is making a mold out of vermiculate board and mold the hot glass
But you cant machine glass the way you want, sad but true
Regards,
Santiago

[jTr]

Ron,
I have a good friend who does the sandblasting method. He's done this for years - landscapes, lifesize animals - truely amazing stuff, but it is a whole different world of skills - takes a true artist to draw it and blast it and have it look right.
Would love to see if someone else has a cnc solution...

jeff

[jhedlund58]

Lexan is clear and carves nicely just like wood.... cut with band saw.... table saw... shaper.... no chipping. cuts like hardwood and i use same settings... u gonna light with neon u may want to make relief shallower than normal... u can get lexan for about 30 square foot from usplastic.... half inch thick... which is what i use for neon lights

[cabnet636]

is this gift from my friend Bill W out of FLA. he gave it to me at the Aspire Camp last march in my shop, it is sandblasted glass and is absolutely beautiful!!

don't ask as I have absolutely no idea how he does this

[Bob Eustace]

Ron we do minor jobs for a glass artist doing mainly church windows. All he does is lay pieces on top of each other then bakes them for 8 hours at 600 C. Results are simply stunning. You get lines simply by laying strings of different colours. He also uses a sort of lost wax in reverse method where he lets glass slump over plaster and gets some interesting effects. Doesnt take a lot of power with the biggest furnace only being 7.5 KVA for doing work under 24 inches. You get the strings by letting glass flow out a hole in the bottom of a crucible. Interesting texture effects by grushing glass to pebble size. Guy does workshops.

http://www.petertoyne.com/