Glass Cutting Made Easy

Glass cutting is a mystery to many people, but it’s really simple. In this episode, I’ll show you the tools, supplies, and technique you need to flawlessly cut regular and art glass.

When you use a typical glass cutter, you don’t really cut glass - you score it. This creates a weakness on one side of the sheet. If even pressure was applied during the score, and the cutter wheel contacted the surface of the glass perpendicular to the face, you have an excellent chance of having the glass break cleanly, with nice even perpendicular edges. This is true whether it was a straight, simple or multiple-curved cut.

A light oily lubricant is used to help the scoring motion, as well as keep the cutter wheel sharpened longer. My personal favorite is kerosene, but other light mineral oils work, too.

To finish the cut, the scored side of the glass is held facing up, and slight downward pressure is applied to both sides of the score. This can be accomplished using your thumbs on both sides of the cut on the top, and your loose fists under. The glass is squeezed and the hands rolled a bit downward and apart. Or, you can use “running pliers” that apply the same type of pressure. You can also place the glass flat on a somewhat padded surface (make sure any glass chips have been swept away so you don’t get scratches on the glass sheet), score up, with a small object (like a finish nail or little washer) under the sheet and under the score line. Slight down pressure on both sides will cause the glass to “run” along the score.

Did you know that glass is one of the most renewable resources we have? It is made of sand, soda, and limestone. Sand is silica, one of the most plentiful substances on the earth. Soda is sodium oxide or soda ash (used for a LOT of things, including washing soda for your laundry). Limestone is also very common and the form used in making glass is commonly called lime.

Glass is durable, but depending on what type it is, can be quite brittle. The thicker the sheet, the more resilient it is. If the glass is tempered, for uses such as sliding glass doors, entry sidelights and top windows in doors, you can’t cut it. If hit with sufficient enough force, it will shatter into little pieces instead of large shards. Lots of lives have been saved due to this innovation.

Colored glass, commonly used in “stained” glass applications, uses the same basic ingredients as regular glass, but different metals (in the form of oxides or sulfides) are added to the molten glass before it is rolled out or made into sheets, textures are formed or molded objects are made.

With only a bit of practice, you’ll get quite good at accurately cutting glass and what at one time looked like a mystery now will become a go-to skill. It’s quite impressive to bystanders!

Stay tuned for more on glass techniques, including stained glass arts, and a full subscription-based course for those that really want to build their skills to create beautiful art glass projects for fun and profit!

Видео Glass Cutting Made Easy канала DirtFarmerJay