Cutting glass?

Hey folks, I'm checking to see if anyone has experience cutting glass. This is a little different though, because I want to cut the bottom off of a thick-walled vase. The glass is the rustic kind with some tiny air bubbles in it. I have a large wet saw with a diamond blade(10") . I'm being a weenie and asking first. What y'all think?not about the weenie part.

[ Edited by: thechikitiki on 2003-06-11 19:53 ]

Hmmmm, Weenie and 10" in the same line huh?..l
It's funny though, I've been contemplating the same thing. (glass cutting, not weenie part!)
When Arizona first came out with the blue Ginseng Tea bottles, I decided I needed to amass as many as I could for a future project. And no, I still don't know what that project is, but I must have 200 of the damn things in storage in my Grandmother's basement.

Kinda like cutting tile. Is the blade new and sharp? If not it may chip the glass. I have cut newer glass with good results. Maybe get something old and cheap (hey ....watch it!!!) I mean glass at a thrift store to practice with.

Danny,
I was a Glassblower and I used to cut stock on a Pistorias saw. It is a wet saw with a flexible blade. Is Your blade rigid? If your cut binds, the glass will exlode. Remember they are FLYING razor sharp shards of glass. WHEN A CUT GOES BAD, IT GOES REAL BAD. be careful, use all precautions , eye protection, saftey first, wear a cup. Call me 760-754-8195.

I remeber once I was cuting a 5 foot long two inch Dia tube of kimbal 5450. Like a flourescent tube with a 1/4 inch wall thickness. The blade had degraded and actualy fell apart at speed, KAPOW, it shatered the tube I was holding, it was raining glass. It was like my hundredth cut that morning, woke me up, I tell you what. Be carefull, please.
Mahalo,
Al

Does anybody remember a device in the late 70's that was always sold on tv?
(along w/ginzu knives) it was a wire cutter that you could rotate around a glass bottle till it scored it than you would just tap it til it broke? They also sold stuff that you could then polish the edges and make glasses and vases.

do I really remember such a device or was it just a dream?

[ Edited by: inkylouise on 2003-06-11 21:39 ]

My Grandfather used to tie strinng around the bottle, laced with karosine and ignite it. Then after it burned out, they'd dip the bottle into cold water and it would seperate. 1940's version of the Diamond Blade!?

Hey, that's pretty cool Rev. Have you ever tried it to see if it works?

I made some stained glass once and we did the score-n-tap method. Don't know if this would work on a non-flat piece of glass though. However, it would be worth a shot, as it won't explode and rain shards of glass... the worst you could do is break the bottle in the wrong place.

Thanks for the tips folks. Here I go.

Danny,

Please be extremely careful!

And if not, I want everyone to know my Chikitiki 3'8" signed tiki will be up on ebay immediately!

This is a rare piece by one of the masters (bless his tiki soul). Before he passed away after the 'glass cutting incident', he personally told me it was his first Ku tiki and one of his favorites.

I'm thinking a 6 digit number (to the right of the decimal that is) is in order.

Happy bidding!

inkylouise - I remember those glass cutters! That's the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. We had one of those things and it worked great.

[ Edited by: floratina on 2003-06-12 09:51 ]

On 2003-06-11 21:38, inkylouise wrote:
it was a wire cutter that you could rotate around a glass bottle till it scored it than you would just tap it til it broke? They also sold stuff that you could then polish the edges and make glasses and vases.

Yes, Ronco made it. I don't know if it's still being manufactured, but you could probably find one on eBay.

--cindy

http://www.khue.com/dept/cutt/bott.htm
Here is a link to a bottle cutting site. I found it after I successfully (barely) cut the bottom out of an old glass clorox bottle for a lamp I built. I used a worm drive saw with an abrassive blade to roughly score the thing. It worked but I don't recommend this technique.