Engraving Glass

Engraving glass is not a difficult process, what is engraving glass? All it is, removing the top layer of glass from an object from its surface, weather that object is a mirror, car window or just a plain glass you plan on using every day at home. The process of doing this is the same for any item you plan to engrave. The description of how I do this process is a brief overview but does sum up the entire process.

The process for which I will describe is from using a sandblaster, and the media that I use to etch the glass is Aluminum oxide. I use the oxide because it has been found that the silica in silica sand causes cancer and seeing as that is not a good health benefit is why I use what I do.

To begin you just need to find or design whatever it is that you would like to engrave and get that image ready to use. Most of the images I use have to be what I call cleaned up, most generally the photos of things that are tried to be used have jagged edges on them, and this is because of the pixilation of the image on the computer screen. Cleaning up that image is not very hard but you will have to have some sort of graphics program to use so that you can get your picture to a vectorized state. Vectorizing a picture does not mean you're ready to engrave it is just one of the steps to get you closer to completing your project. One you have your photo vector you may still have to clean up the edges. Vectored images allow you to make those lines from jagged to smooth within your graphics program.

Once I have my photo complete, I'm ready to get it on to my media that I plan to blast through, which in my case is just regular sign vinyl. I use what is called a plotter to cut the image, once cut I pull out all the parts I don't want, (this will be the places that I blast through), then my photo is ready to be placed on whatever I plan on engraving.

Now the image is on my item I am ready to engrave it. I am sure though to mask off all edges that I don't want to blast, then I blast the item. That is really all there is to it and then you can sit back and enjoy your creation.

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