Prepping glass plates for the water jet
Taking measurements of a mounted glass plate before we take it to the water jet
When we take our hand blown glass plates to the water jet to be cut, we have to do a bit of prep work. Since we are cutting out very small shapes, there is a high risk of our glass floating away and sinking into the machine. A simple trick to lower the risk of that happening is mounting the plates onto a piece of plywood.
We take extreme bond mounting tape and adhere the plate to the plywood. This gives the plate something sturdy to hold onto while the tape helps to keep the glass stuck on the wood after its been cut.
The ruler is there to take a measurement of the plate so we can create a waterjet cutting file that is to scale.
After each shape is cut from the surface of our colorful glass plates, they are ground down by hand to a comfortably wearable thickness using diamond infused abrasives. A trip through the kiln returns each sanded edge to its original glassy shine.
