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OK, We're back live...
for today
in His Glassworks' studio
We've go an area set up where we're going to demonstrate some of the saws and
grinding equipment
We're going to focus this one on the
saws but
for function what we're going to do, we're going to be demonstrating
cutting wine bottles.
Okay, I'm going to start
the demonstration with the (Gemini) Revolution XT. I'll show you a little bit about it
uh... this is the basic unit
these are the racks for the sliding tray.
The sliding tray and this rack is a separate accessory
it's nice for long straight cuts
useful?... depends on your project
The saw comes with a
standard blade
that could be adapted to a glass blade. It also comes with a little
dressing block. We have larger ones when this is gone. This is used for
dressing and sharpening the blade.
When you believe the blade is cutting slowly
you just make
single very thin slices through it and it will wear away a little metal and
expose new diamond.
The saw itself
like I said, comes with
just the basic unit here
the water is self-contained in the bottom
the blade and the belt system go through the water, so it's always providing
water to the blade.
uh... you need to check and make sure that there is always water in the
container.
If you're doing a great deal of cutting
a little ice in the water
will make for a more efficient cuts.
But I'm gonna demonstrate first without the sliding tray how to cut a bottle.
Safety glasses on because there will be chips of glass flying.
If you want a straight cut,
a curved cut,
angled, whatever...
the saw is very versatile.
I'm basically going to demonstrate maybe both
y'know, two different cuts
I won't be talking while I'm cutting
I'll start with an angle cut
so you can see
how functional it is.
and then I'll tighten it up and just roll it into the blade to try make as straight a cut
as possible.
You may have noticed that I was curving it while I cut just to show you that capability.
Also at the very end when you'll want to go as slow as possible so you don't knock
a big chunk out.
Two things you need to realize; there's lots of little piece of the glass flying
you can put bandaids on your finger before you cut yourself or after. In my case
this is after. Okay, now i'm going to do the straight cut
and I'm basically going to roll the bottle
into the blade.
You can hold it straight and cut
whatever you end up doing is ah... if it works for you what's right for you
Now I'm going to clean this up and put the tray on so you can see the next step.
Now we'll be demonstrating with the sliding tray
it's not on bearings as it rides on felt
within a track and it's magnetic so it's a little firm,
but you'll have to
get used to that.
at any rate uh... again
safety glasses are important.
You'll see when you're cutting glass like this, glass chips will be everywhere
so protect your eyes or have a trip to the emergency room. Okay, the sliding tray kit
comes with this handy little magnetic
angle
that you can use to position
and if you're making cuts
you could make them uniform every time.
It's also magnetic
to here and
if you want to be making
significantly or properly sized bottles you to do it that way
You need to be careful when you're doing that
this blade will not cut through the bottle all the way. It will touch that and
you'll be missing
this little area here.
Two ways around that
that I've come up with
would be doing it this way
and then sliding through which I will demonstrate a moment
or the other thing is you can get a strip of wood or whatever to
give you a little room away from there.
I try to go as slow as possible but if you go too fast it's going to break out
at the very end...
really not that bad a chip,
and very easily ground out.
If you go too aggressively, in too quickly you may get a big chunk cut out
since wine bottles are
plentiful you can learn from your mistakes. This is the MK(101)
saw, it has a 10 inch blade.
This is our Result
diamond blade.
Our finest and smoothest cutting blade
but don't presume I'm not going to get chips.
The nature of the glass is that it breaks.
So carefully put that over the shaft,
the spacer here has a little step
and a flat side,
flat side goes out. This
puts pressure on the blade to keep it running
as true as possible.
Carefully hold the blade while you're tightening it
without bending the blade.
I'm just gonna show you what I'm gonna do I won't be able to talk while it's sawing
because it, along with all these other pieces of equipment are quite noisy
pieces of equipment.
Holding the bottle where you want, again there are
inch marks and centimeter marks so you want a five inch cut
you hold it that way.
Again you may have noticed
cutting slow is always your friend.
A little bit of chip came out
on this side, fortunately.
Probably because I was holding this nice and firm and this was able to
vibrate a little.
I want to introduce the the Covington twelve-inch diamond grinder.
They have a couple different models
it's very well built, very heavy
more than a tabletop machine but smaller than a floor machine,
so you're going to have to work that out
to get it to the height you want or
if you're comfortable working on it when you're sitting in a chair.
I like working standing up so it's going to be
on a base.
At any rate the
wheel is a twelve inch, as I said
and it has quite a number of adapters and
functionality to it.
It will come with a
one-inch plug
that this spanner
will tighten it down
into the hole
uh... it does tighten down further
so in this case you can use a diamond disk with a one inch arbor hole
that fits right on and very helpful to center it
and have it running the way you want.
It also has the option of...
and if you stand
back a little,
water to bubble up
while you're grinding
so it'll keep everything wet
So this is especially useful when you're grinding bowls
where the water will always be where the water
is making contact
This unit that has the water coming up to the center
is a variable speed unit. It's directional so
you can dial in the speed you want.
Let it turn off…
and reversible.
Now with this adaptor
we have an option of a 5/8"-11 cone
that can be used for grinding the inner surface
or the inner edge of a cut
bottle. There are two hoses here; Loc-Line for applying water because
every diamond step should be done wet.
So, we'll demonstrate that a little later.
This machine has the functionality with this brush
to contain
the over spray
So you're not working in a shower
That is
removable by itself...
stainless steel guard.
This can be taken out,
and the brush returned
k
if you want to work pieces that are long
it will go through and have no obstruction.
This is the bottom of the bottle
that was cut
and you can see the chips on the edges
some large some small
but if you
see the largest chips that is how far you're gonna need to grind down.
Now looking at the bubble level
simply try to center that
in the dip of the bottle
you're going to want to have the bubble pretty level while you're grinding.
otherwise you'll have an angled bottle.
Do your best to center it over
the center pilot.
make sure it's down well so there's no grit or chips of glass beneath it which would cause a bump.
and then we will
turn the machine on.
Two options for water. One is bubbling up through the center.
the other option is water coming from the side. My personal preference. You can control the flow with the valve which will be important with different grits.
This is the bottle that I just ground.
I ground it on a 140 grit disk.
You can see the chips are far minimized.
There will be, still, a little bit of chipping
from the diamond grit.
Each successive grit
will remove
more and more of the chips until you end up with a nice sharp
smooth edge.
Changing the disk
is simple as the back is magnetic
Off goes the more aggressive
On goes the finer grit
Now I'm going to be grinding with
the 270 grit.
First with 140, this is the 270,
so it's finer.
I'm not going to bother with the bubble level
With experience, I've learned that by turning
I can maintain it's degree of flatness.
Now for illustration, these are two glasses that I've ground.
The first one here is the 140 grit. You can see the scratching on it
is a bit more aggressive obviously because the diamond is larger.
A little bit of chipping around the edges.
This one is the 270 grit.
The chipping is virtually gone. I've gone down beyond the chips that were
left from the 140.
And it leaves a smoother, finer finish.
Putting in the 5/8 inch adaptor.
On that, I'll screw on the cone.
This is brown, it is also the same grit
as this.
Enough water to get the pad wet.
For smoothing, I tend to use a little bit less water. A very fast drip.
You do need to be careful not to hit the edge of your glass on the cone.
That would scratch your glass.
Now again the next step in illustration
this is the grit
from the 270 grit.
and this is the 325 grit smoothing pad
Any little chips that would be left
from the 270 are gone.
This is a nice flat, smooth finish.
Now for the outer bevel, just carefully do this. Not applying much pressure at all.
That will put a little bevel right there.
Then I like to go one more time just in case there are any little chips from that beveling.
Now we have the inner bevel
to consider. For that,
we want to have water coming down
with enough room for you to get into it.
Slowly turning,
going up and down.
You don't want to just jam it on there as that that will set up a vibration
that will destroy your glass,
and probably cut your hand at the same time.
This way you're also using most of the cone.
If you're just doing in one spot, you're going to grind a groove in it.
So you want to avoid that if you can.
You see, I'm slowly turning and
using as much of the surface of the cone as possible.
this one
was just done on the
325 smoothing pad
and I have not done any of the bevels.
On the other one,
you may be able to see a slight bevel
it doesn't take much to be
comfortable on your lip.
You just don't want that nice sharp edge,
so there's a little bit of bevel inside and out.
This pad is a cerium oxide pad.
Again I'm going to make sure that the
wheel is perfectly clean,
the back of the magnet is clean.
For this case I'm gonna show you using a pad with no hole.
It can be done,
it's just personal preference to
have the centering plug.
I find that polishing works best at slower speeds
This is again, something you'll have to fine tune to find exactly if you need half speed,
a little higher or a little lower
learn what works best for you.
The next step is to throughly clean out the glass so there is no little chips of glass that will have the possibility
of contaminating the polish pad.
You will need water.
Enough to keep
the pad damp. You don't need
to flood it,
because too much water can cause hydroplaning.
Right now, and it's not hurting my fingers
I'm just running my fingers along to make sure
it's wet over the whole thing uniformly.
Leaving this water running like that, I'm going to go center to edge,
and not a great deal of pressure.
The sound is normal with this kind of pad.
[3M cerium impregnated pad]
Now the rim of the glass, having been polished for about as long as you saw
and the time will be a little more or a little less based on the thickness of the glass and
how you use the pad.
You can see that there's still a little bit of haze on the inner lip,
from the cone.
And like i said we have cones with finer gris. This is the 325,
We also have a 600 and a 1200.
A 1200 would obviously give much closer to a polish although not actual
polish.
And the pads we have in 600 and 1200 also
for this outer bevel.
You might really consider a 600 grit
for the outer lip.
You may see the quality of the polish increase.
And here you have the nicely finished
glass made up of the wine bottle.