If I ever take on glass engraving again, smack me...

[Scott Shepherd]

About this time last year, did a glass engraving job. Something we don't do, awards. It was a pain in the butt then. Small text, letters not appearing, then magically appearing (if you have engraved glass, you know what I'm talking about), all the "fun" things that go along with glass engraving. Really fought that job back then.

A call came in about a month ago, people wanted to do the same thing. Great, I have all the settings (still in my job control software), I have all the fixtures. Okay, we'll do it.

Ordered the glass. First delivery date of the glass to us. Missed. Called, sorry, it's going out in a few days. Missed that. Called again. Got new date. Missed that. Finally got a tracking number, stuff is due in Thursday afternoon. Comes in, great, we have a whopping 1 day to get it done unless we do it on the weekend. Thanks for that. No ability to screw something up and get some more in, only a couple of extras. Great, thanks for that too. Nothing like the pressure of having no way to replace the items and figuring it all out at the same time.

Engrave the first one. Not even close to working. After 2 hours of working on the same sample, trying to get a good, clean mark on small letters, I went home, way past quitting time. Great, I'll pick it up in the morning with fresh thoughts.

Wrong. 3 hours later, I finally get the magical combination of settings and technique figure out. It's now 10 hours later (or something like that) and I'm still working on the stupid things.

If I EVER think about taking a glass job to engrave, someone, please, do me the favor and smack the back of my head and ask "what are you thinking?".

Have I mentioned I hate glass?

I hate glass.

(where is that brochure for that sand carving setup????????)

[Martin Boekers]

I feel your pain! I still do glass, but it's a pain.

I have a couple of clients that love a certain award
what the bigger problem with this award (it comes
from a very good vendor) but the faux wood spray
on the base is usually bubbled or chipped.

This is the ONLY product I have removed from my
inventory becuase of it's consistant poor quality.

I guess I'm not the only one with the ("magic disappearing letters)
I do stick to block fonts on glass and look at it carefully while
positioned on the table and run it a second pass any more than
that the piece is trashed.

With the profileration of lasers you think someone would have
come up with a glass formula that is consistant for our application..

I do alot of those crystal globes that Marco sells, I guess these are hand finished because the bases
are rarely square so you waste time testing to get everything centered
as possible. It takes more time to square evrything also as I haven't
been able to find a clamp and leveling system that was reasonably priced.

So I do feel your pain!

Marty

[Gary Hair]

In a word - sandblast!

There are some people who swear by lasering glass, I'm not one of them. I started sandblasting 3 years ago and haven't looked back. I have done glasses by the hundreds and stone from marble-size up to a 2300lb slab. Get into sandblasting, you'll never look at glass and stone the same way again!

Gary

[Robert Walters]

If I EVER think about taking a glass job to engrave, someone, please, do me the favor and smack the back of my head

And your preference would be...

Option A:




Option B:

[Ed Lang]

Option "B" for him!

[Frank Corker]

No really Steve, option C will do you just fine!

[Chuck Stone]

ok, now that I read about the missing letters, I'm curious.
I hadn't read it anywhere before, and I thought I was going crazy.
(still a possibility, I know)

I did the same piece three times, and it was always fine on screen, but
that same letter refused to show up on the glass. I never knew why.
What causes this?

[Scott Shepherd]

Chuck, it has to do with that section of glass not fracturing like the other areas. You can take something sharp, a pick or something, and touch it and some times it will pop and instantly appear. Like you have released that surface tension that's holding it back.

I'll take option B or Frank's option. Either one is fine. 12 hours on that project yesterday. I think I might have made $2 per hour once the smoke clears

[paul mott]

For me sand blasting is definitely the best, it leaves an open surface which looks a bit like a mountain range of peaks and valleys. Laser etching, on the other hand can boil the glass and create a semi closed-cell structure which looks like a series of minute spheres, some broken, some not.
It is curious but some of the laser etched glass items that I have done seem to be hygroscopic, they can change their contrast ratio with changes in humidity - really weird.

Paul.

[Dan Hintz]

Steve,

I'll gladly take your glass jobs... done quite a few and never had a problem

[Scott Shepherd]

Great Dan, I'll bring you the file and some samples and if you want it next time around, you can have it.

I'm done with it. Never again.

I just glued my last piece of glass to it's base, the UV light is curing it now, then it's off to the customer.

[Dan Hintz]

I'll have to borrow that UV curer, though

[Dan Ashlin]

The first order we got at my new shop for glass, someone brought in some of those stemless wine glasses from target. They are horrible for the disappearing text. Went through the whole job and it looked like maybe 3 or 4 letters showed up. Opened the hood and it sounded like the glass broke. Looked down, there's all my engraving. Scared the hell out of me.

[TONG LI]

Just curious, what's the speed and power do you use and are you doing vector or raster?

I never had any problem with glass. Well, I lied, we blew up a beer in the laser machine at a convention while vector cut our logo with too high a power setting, lol.

Tong

[Dan Hintz]

we blew up a beer in the laser machine at a convention while vector cut our logo with too high a power setting

Ouch! Not only a party foul, but a machine cleanup and embarrassment factor, to boot...


EDIT: I find the timing of this thread somewhat amusing considering I'm currently working on my book's chapter on glass processing...