Glass Cutting Made Easy
"Glass cutting is a mystery to many people, but it’s really simple. In this episode, I’ll show you the tools, supplies, and techniques you need to flawlessly cut regular and art glass.
#cuttingglass #glasscutting #stainedglass
When you use a typical glass cutter, you don’t really cut glass - you score it. This creates a weakness on one side of the sheet. If even pressure was applied during the score, and the cutter wheel contacted the surface of the glass perpendicular to the face, you have an excellent chance of having the glass break cleanly, with nice even perpendicular edges. This is true whether it was a straight, simple, or multiple-curved cut.
A light oily lubricant is used to help the scoring motion, as well as keep the cutter wheel sharpened longer. My personal favorite is kerosene, but other light mineral oils work, too.
To finish the cut, the scored side of the glass is held facing up, and slight downward pressure is applied to both sides of the score. This can be accomplished using your thumbs on both sides of the cut on the top, and your loose fists under. The glass is squeezed and the hands rolled a bit downward and apart. Or, you can use “running pliers” that apply the same type of pressure. You can also place the glass flat on a somewhat padded surface (make sure any glass chips have been swept away so you don’t get scratches on the glass sheet), score up, with a small object (like a finish nail or little washer) under the sheet and under the scoreline. Slight down pressure on both sides will cause the glass to “run” along the score.
Did you know that glass is one of the most renewable resources we have? It is made of sand, soda, and limestone. Sand is silica, one of the most plentiful substances on the earth. Soda is sodium oxide or soda ash (used for a LOT of things, including washing soda for your laundry). Limestone is also very common and the form used in making glass is commonly called lime.
Glass is durable, but depending on what type it is, can be quite brittle. The thicker the sheet, the more resilient it is. If the glass is tempered, for uses such as sliding glass doors, entry sidelights, and top windows indoors, you can’t cut it. If hit with sufficient enough force, it will shatter into little pieces instead of large shards. Lots of lives have been saved due to this innovation.
Colored glass, commonly used in “stained” glass applications, uses the same basic ingredients as regular glass, but different metals (in the form of oxides or sulfides) are added to the molten glass before it is rolled out or made into sheets, textures are formed or molded objects are made.
With only a bit of practice, you’ll get quite good at accurately cutting glass and what at one time looked like a mystery now will become a go-to skill. It’s quite impressive to bystanders!
The cutters used in this episode are:
"Pencil" Self-Oiling Style: https://amzn.to/3swEk3z
"Pistol-Grip" Self Oiling Style: https://amzn.to/3JjVnvr
Please note that availability changes ongoing, so you may need to find a similar tool from another supplier - but these links should get you going in the right direction.
Stay tuned for more on glass techniques, including stained glass arts, and a full subscription-based course for those that really want to build their skills to create beautiful art glass projects for fun and profit!
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
If you do much work around your home and shop,
somewhere along the way you're gonna have to cut glass,
whether it is to replace a broken window in your house,
or you're taking on a new craft like stained glass,
or you wanna do a little bit of artistry,
I'm gonna walk you through the basic steps
of how to cut glass, do it safely, and do it well.
Stay tuned.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
In this episode, I'm gonna show you
how to safely cut glass.
Now, there are different kinds of tools that are out there.
The one I'm holding up here
is a little bit more of a professional tool.
It actually has a reservoir in the handle
to keep lubricant in it.
And this is more commonly used in stained glass
or art glass arenas.
However, you can get a wide range of tools
right from your big box retailer, the intro tools,
up to more of these professional tools.
And I'll go into that in just a little bit.
But you're gonna be cutting different kinds of glass.
Now, this is a piece of scrap glass.
It is what's called single-strength window glass.
Double-strength does not mean that double thickness.
This is about, oh, an eighth.
And double-strength glass,
I'm using imperial measurements in the United States,
is 3 32nds.
One of the advantages or disadvantages
of using either type of glass,
the single-strength or double-strength,
single-strength is more economical,
but in a larger window, it tends to flex more
in the wind, thermal contraction and expansion.
You'll actually see it kind of throw off
little rays of light.
So it's not as pretty to look at.
3 32nd glass, double-strength glass,
is stronger, doesn't flex as much,
and has more thermal resistance,
meaning that cold and heat don't pass through it as quickly.
So it has a better insulation factor.
And when it's paired up in double-pane glass or windows,
it really helps.
All right, let's go ahead and get started.
As you start to cut glass,
there's a couple of things you need.
One, you're gonna need to put on safety glasses.
Number two, you're gonna need a good cutter.
Here's a couple of the styles
that are used more in the craft arena,
but these are great cutters.
I would have some band-aids around
because if you do cut yourself,
and if you're a craftsperson that is using glass
and glass cutters and handling glass ongoing,
you're gonna get little nicks.
So have a good array of bandages ready to go.
Another thing you need to have is some kind of cutting oil,
and I just like to use kerosene.
The reason is when you do dry cuts on glass,
it doesn't cut as well,
nor does it maintain the edge on the cutter itself.
You're gonna wear out the tools faster.
So putting on a thin lubricant like kerosene
works really well.
You can use clear mineral oil, those types of things.
Different people have different concoctions.
My go-to is kerosene.
It's cheap, it's easily available,
and I kind of like the smell,
but I may be a little weird, okay?
So those are some of the things you're gonna need.
To make it convenient,
I actually pour off or decant a little bit of kerosene
right into a little jar like this,
and then I can use an artist brush or flat brush,
or if you have flux brushes,
you can simply dip into this
and then brush where you're going to make a cut
on the glass, and you've actually pre-lubricated, okay?
So that works really well.
Let's go ahead and cap that back up
so we don't have a spill accident here.
All right, well, let's go ahead and get cutting.
I'm gonna put on my safety glasses,
and we're gonna show you,
first thing I'm gonna do is just cut some glass,
and then I'm gonna tell you what I was doing.
So you might see, once you see it,
a little of the nuances that I'm practicing
are gonna help you to be very successful in cutting glass.
So here we go.
I'm gonna go ahead and pick up my cutter.
I'm going to cut.
I always like to cut from the far side to me.
So I'm gonna start over in this area right here.
I'm gonna go ahead and listen as I cut.
You should hear that really nice,
I call it the shriek sound.
It kind of shrieks as it's cutting,
and what that's actually doing is scoring a depression
across the surface of the glass,
creating a weakness on one side of the glass,
because glass, while it's a durable material in many ways,
it is very brittle.
So now that I've scored that under that cut,
I'm gonna grip like this,
and that's where gloves can come in.
I don't wear them, but notice that thing about fell apart.
I just barely rolled it apart, and that fell apart.
Okay, now, let's tell you what I was doing there,
and this is where it's really gonna help you.
There's two different styles that are very common.
One is what I call a pencil style or a pen style.
It's essentially a shaft.
It has a breaker on the end, a globe,
that in case you need to tap the glass
before breaking it apart like I just did,
you would tap this on the opposite side
of the score you just did.
Not on the score side, on the opposite side.
You're just trying to get the glass to crack a little bit,
to weaken it, so when you do roll it apart,
it breaks cleanly along the score.
Inside of this one is a little reservoir
that every time you depress that,
a little bit of that oil that comes down
onto the roller and lubricates.
In this case, we're double lubricating
because I brushed the glass, and then I've got this.
The other kind is a pistol grip type.
Now, what's the difference here?
This is held like this,
and you can cut close to you and away to you overhand.
I use this every once in a while,
and a lot of people like it because it does allow you
to get more of your top body over it
to do more work like this,
but I like to see the cut,
I kind of get down a little bit lower,
and I use the pencil one.
This one's kind of intuitive.
You're just gonna grip it
and then guide the direction of the cut,
and I'll give you more detail on that in a moment.
This one, not so much so.
There are a couple ways to hold it.
You can hold it like that
and cut over like this or like this.
It's a little awkward, but I've seen people do that.
The other way that I've had is people grabbing it like this,
so you're just holding onto it,
and you're doing over the cut or coming back at you.
Again, depending on your hand strength,
these different cuts will work,
but most professionals that I've encountered,
and this is the skill I used some 25, 30 years ago
when I learned this,
is simply V, reach through,
put the cutter in line with essentially going down.
You can see the shape.
It's not turned like this.
It's not off at an angle.
It's in line.
You're gonna grip and then push with the thumb,
and that is the way I hold the cutter.
Now, when I cut,
I like cutting from the edge to me,
and you can do different things.
If you need a straight cut, you can lay this alongside.
I can run the cutter right along beside it.
You have to keep in mind there's a little distance
from the edge of the ruler to where the cutter is,
so it's about an eighth inch.
It's gonna cut offset,
and I can do a straight cut just like this.
I can start here, keep that against that ruler,
and I can get myself a nice straight edge.
I lighten up as I get close now.
Again, let's look at, we heard that nice, clear cut.
I can see where the cut happened.
You can't see it very well there,
but I'm gonna grip on both sides,
keeping these sharp edges away,
and I'm gonna do a roll down, so here we go.
Boom, there it goes.
Now we have this nice, straight cut
right along the edge there.
What does that allow you to do?
Well, true up in some thick space
and a little window repair, a pane of glass.
Perhaps you're doing this to do some pictures
and you're putting in a frame,
but there's another great benefit that I'm doing.
By the way, notice I'm working over some newspaper
to give this a little bit more cushioning
and little flecks that get under it aren't so readily there.
Well, what this allows me to do is to get a 90,
so I can get a nice corner,
and either I can throw a little square on it like this,
or I like my monster square.
We're gonna put that right there.
Now, the disadvantage, notice that this is up.
It kind of runs away there,
so I have to be careful when I,
here it's easier, but over here,
I've gotta be careful I don't do this.
So let's see what we do.
Let's just give it a shot.
Here we go, unedited.
Let's just see if I'm successful.
I'm gonna start at that end.
Again, notice the way my hand is situated
and gripping the barrel of the cutter.
I'm keeping it parallel.
Lighten up right the end of the cut.
Let's see what we get.
There's not a whole lot here on the edge to grip,
but can I break it?
Absolutely.
So now we have a 90-degree cut,
and there's the scrap piece of glass.
Now, there's another little nuance I wanna pass on to you
that I've seen a lot of people,
when they're first beginning to cut glass, do this,
and they don't end up with these really clean cuts.
They end up with a jagged edge.
It's really, really sharp.
I mean, surgical tool sharp.
Or it doesn't follow the break line,
and the thing runs off,
and now you're trying to clean up an edge
instead of this first nice cut.
So here's the trick.
When I'm holding this here,
you keep it parallel, no matter what you do.
So if I'm doing a curve, I do it like that,
not like a race car.
You don't do this.
If I put this at an angle to the glass,
it will break at a really weird angle,
or it'll run away from the cut.
So you have to concentrate and acquire the muscle memory
of keeping the cutter vertical, just like that.
Now, let me demonstrate that.
I'm just gonna take a Sharpie pen,
and I'm gonna just draw on here a curve cut
that might be used, let's say,
if you're doing some leaded glass
or you're doing something decorative.
So let's just do a random cut.
I'm just gonna draw this winding cut like this, okay?
And that might be something,
a cabinet or something like that.
So watch very carefully as I do this,
and Rob is doing a great job
of getting the camera angle down here
where you can follow this.
Notice what I will not be doing.
I will not be doing this as tempting as it is
for you to go vroom, vroom, vroom
and follow the little racetrack.
Don't do it.
You won't like the results.
Instead, very vertical.
So here we go.
I'm gonna follow this as I cut.
Watch the rotation.
There is no lean over.
I'm simply keeping the glass cutter very vertical
as I follow the path.
Oop, you saw I went off a little there, forgive me.
All right, and then I end up and lighten up right there.
Now, none of the angle changed.
All vertical as I went through the path.
How did it work?
Well, let's try it.
Again, no cutaways.
I'm gonna grip on both sides,
and again, I'm always doing this
and rolling apart slightly.
I can use my own knuckles as a fulcrum.
So here we go.
I'm gonna put it right here, right here,
and kind of aim down there,
and we're just gonna see.
You could hear it let go.
There we go.
And notice along the edge,
there's hardly any sharp flareaways.
This is sharp enough as it is right now,
but there it is.
It's very clean,
and then I can touch up that edge
with a Camerondum stone or a grinder
if you're a stained glass artisan and so forth.
So there you go.
That's a random cut.
Now, let's also jump to something else really quickly here.
Here's a piece of art glass
that we've had in our inventory for a long time,
a nice piece of orange glass.
It's streaky.
Some have a lot of seeds.
This has a medium texture.
Can you hear that?
There it is.
There's a little bit.
It's not smooth.
On this side, it's more smooth.
You can choose which side to cut,
but let's see,
does it work on this type of glass as well?
Well, let's change to this.
There's a little bitty here,
and I'll do a cut with each one.
So if I'm cutting here,
this one tends to work much better
close to the body and going away
versus this one works a lot better.
In my view, you can do it like this, okay?
But I like it away and towards me.
Let's do two different cuts.
I'm gonna grip this.
Let's go ahead and oil the glass real quick
just to make sure we're okay
and I'm not putting wear on it.
I'm just gonna do a random.
Again, let's put a little bit of oil there.
And here we go.
I'm gonna go ahead and take this,
start on this edge, press down.
And again, I'm assisting a little bit
by pushing down with my other hand.
But again, none of this as we went around the corner.
All right, so I'm ready to break this cut.
Now, if you were a stained glass artist
and you're gonna do a lot of this,
you're gonna need to buy something called a running pliers.
And I'm a little bit embarrassed
because I can't locate mine right now.
I've been looking for it, so my apologies.
But a pair of pliers like this
simply has an arc bottom jaw
and then a cup top jaw.
So it allows you, when you squeeze it,
to take that scored glass and force it this way,
very gently, so that the cut runs away.
Since I can't find the pliers,
and frankly, when I'm doing a lot of stained glass,
I count on them maybe 10 to 15% of the time.
Usually it's my fingers and my hand.
So we're just gonna see if it works here.
So again, we're gonna take a clamping action on this side,
a clamping action on this side.
I'm looking down through there
and where the light is hitting from my angle,
I can see the score is right down in here.
So I'm gonna grab on both sides
and I'm gonna roll back.
And there you go.
Again, it followed that cut precisely.
And if I was using a pattern under it
or a line that had been traced on it, I can do that.
So that's that cutter.
Let's also look and see if this cutter works
just as equally as well.
So again, here we go.
And I'll just do kind of another random cut
away from me and then coming to me.
And we're gonna do a little bit more curviness in this one.
And you could hear it running across
some of the imperfections, the bumps in the glass,
which actually gives us a beauty,
but you could hear I didn't change the angle
or slow down or anything.
I just ran through them
at a nice consistent pressure and rate.
And again, we're gonna go like this on both sides
and I'm gonna roll this where I can hear it.
There he goes and boom.
So you just work with the glass until it finally gives.
These are just some of the basic skills you can acquire.
You're gonna have to put your hands on the work
and then the muscle memory will kick in
and this will become a skill you use
both around the home, but also in craft settings.
Now in the future, we're gonna actually be putting together
a whole instructional series on the craft of stained glass.
This has been a part of my life for about 30 years.
We've actually done several commissions,
taught classes on it.
So watch for that.
We'll do an overview video
and then we'll also be making available
some online content for subscribers
that really wanna get in the craft detailed.
Hey, if you have some tips that you would like
to make sure that we pass on to your fellow subscribers
in this area, why don't you write back to us
and give us some ideas.
We'd be glad to do that.
And if you found this video to be helpful,
why don't you like it and better yet,
subscribe to our channel
and make sure you ring the bell
so you get all those great updates instantaneously
when we publish, you'll be notified right off first.
Hey, thanks for watching us today.
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes in the garden
as it turns warm around here,
also in the kitchen, product reviews
and just in the shop here at Crafts.
Until the next time,
this is Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com.