How To Cut A Glass?

In simple words, glass can be defined as the brittle, hard, transparent and amorphous solid. (Substance used to make bottles, windows etc). Glass can be off many types like borosilicate glass, aluminium oxynitride glass, soda-lime glass etc. In more technical language, glass can be defined as the inorganic product of a particular fusion, which is then cooled down without any crystallization. Main component of most of glasses is silica.

Finally, in scientific language glass can be extended to various amorphous solids like resins, plastics and various other amorphous solids that don’t contain silica. These days, with advancement of technology, along with traditional techniques of melting, various other techniques are also available to us for the creation of glass, these techniques are- sol-gel method and ion implantation method. As mentioned before glass is an inorganic amorphous compound, so for the study of glass, a separate stream of science exists which is called glass science. And other organic amorphous compounds like plastics are covered by streams like biology, polymer science etc.

How to cut a glass
To cut some regular glass one will need a drawing board, a glass cutter and T square. A glass cutter comes in two types- diamond glass cutters and steel glass cutters.

Types of glass cutters
A steel glass cutter will have a small steel wheel at the end of the cutter. It costs around a US quarter dollar. It is cost effective and efficient enough. But if money is not a problem, then one should always go for a diamond glass cutter. A diamond glass cutter has a lining of genuine diamond. It costs around $4. But it is very efficient in its working. A diamond glass cutter is easy to use as compared to steel glass cutter.

Use of glass cutter
“Tricks make a trade perfect”, this is common saying and it is completely applicable in glass cutting with the help of some steel glass cutter. If one will dip a steel glass cutter (also known as steel wheel cuter) in some oil (kerosene) before making each cut on the glass then the cutter will provide great accuracy.

Use of diamond glass cutter is much easier then steel glass cutter. While using a diamond glass cutter one should hold it just like a pencil, and then cutter should be placed against the edge of the T square. After this one should press the cutter on the glass (firmly) and now one can move it in order to make a cut.

To make a perfect cut, one should hold the cutter at a sharp angle (slanting enough) and for a single cut, single attempt should be used (i.e. cutter should not be up-lifted in between the cut). One should never move the cutter two times, over a same cut line. Cutting with diamond cutter needs great skill, but with practice one can learn easily.

Post cut procedure
After making a cut on a glass sheet, the resultant ends of glass will be rough. For smoothening of these rough ends one should rub them by using a whetstone (any coarse stone poured with some water). One can also use a grindstone, for better smoothening of the ends.

Now a days Laser cutting is also used.

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