help please engraving Glass with a rotary diamond bit?

[Martin Pearson]

Hi Graeme, hope things are still going pretty well, don’t know if this is any help but found this on the web. might be worth contacting them and asking for some help.

http://www.gge.org.uk/

[Rodney Gold]

I would do this some other way , like sandblasting. Diamond engraving of glassware , especially crystal is fraught with difficulty. Diamond tools are used to score and cut glass , that’s essentially what you are doing!!!

We have used diamond burr tools to engrave glass and have used water as a "lubricant" , but haven’t done so this way for ages and ages. We either laser engrave directly on the glass or use a mask and blast.

[Steve Thornton]

I do glass engraving with my Gravograph IS400 volume using a rotary diamond(spinning not dragging) with pledge with a very light setting i.e. the rotary head is wound right off the spring so it just glides across the surface, no problems with it so far, however please do wear safety glasses just in case. Steve

[Robert Lambie]

does it have to be engraved?
sorry, ive never engraved glass, i dont no the first thing about it. however, i have worked with and created decorative glass designs etc for about 9 years now. seeing as you have a vinyl cutter, would glass etching cream & stencil not be a easier way to go?

[Graeme Harrold]

Thanks for the replies, just got some gash glass from a local fenster person to play about with.

Steve, just the answer I was looking for, many thanks, I do believe it was Gravograph that used pledge in a demo…..

Rob, Im guessing the solvents have gotten to you too (:) I have a Wizard 2000 ST engraving machine….only small, but you got to start somewhere…..wish i had a vinyl cutter. 😮

Thanks again :lol1:

[Graeme Harrold]

Well I kept the spindle pressure light, spindle speed med to high, and the XY speed quite fast.

The best part was fitting the 40 and 50mm cubes onto a Dahlgren Wizard that has a Z axis clearance of 25mm!! It took a bit of ingenuity and dismantling of the flatbed……

The pledge worked well and did not splatter too much. Under magnification the edges of the cut are splintered, but then again that is the nature of glass. The majority of the text was cut as an outline, however the WINNER 2007 was filled with a 45 degree hatch with a -30% overlap. It has cut into the crystal about 0.5mm.

Also did some practice cuts on glass with very good results as some of the fine detailed graphics I have reproduced excellently.

Thanks again for the hints, tips and pitfalls, as Ill keep experimenting.

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[Martin Pearson]

So were the globes just you practicing Graeme or are they a job for a customer?

[Graeme Harrold]

The globes were bought……wish I could do that, its the text below that were done for the customer.
They are free standing crystal on black crystal bases.

[Darren_Glasgow]

Hi Graeme,im new to uksignboards,but have been engraving for quite a while now.I also had the same dilemma as yourself probably around a year or so ago engraving glass.A quick call to suregrave and a faceted diamond cutter did the trick.The machine im using now for all my giftware,plates and plaques is a gravograph vx which i bought 3 months ago non-working for a stonking £200!…Using my cnc knowledge,spent £80 on drive boards and software,ditched the old computer,and now runs on a windows 98 pc!…talk about the sale-of-the-century!

[Stephen Morriss]

Hi Darren

What are you using now, Mach3?

Steve

[Darren_Glasgow]

Hi Steve,
im using Kcam.Simple enough to use.I do my work on corel draw and export the drawing as a plt file to Kcam.
Darren

[Graeme Harrold]

quote Darren_Glasgow:

Hi Graeme,im new to uksignboards,but have been engraving for quite a while now.I also had the same dilemma as yourself probably around a year or so ago engraving glass.A quick call to suregrave and a faceted diamond cutter did the trick.The machine im using now for all my giftware,plates and plaques is a gravograph vx which i bought 3 months ago non-working for a stonking £200!…Using my cnc knowledge,spent £80 on drive boards and software,ditched the old computer,and now runs on a windows 98 pc!…talk about the sale-of-the-century!

Yup a quick call to Suregrave almost did the trick………they initially sent out a 90 deg diamond that failed within a couple of weeks, should have had a 120 deg tip, but that was sorted FOC thankfully. Second diamond has just failed after 5 months of medium use, and Im putting this down to too much down force as I don’t have a light touch adaptor……….to get this Im going to have to buy a 1/4" spindle!!!! If you have any more info on cutter longevity I would be interested to hear.