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Nick Napier
12-15-2008, 10:23 PM
Hello, My sister-in-law has started doing stained glass projects. On a whim, I took some scraps and scored them with the laser. One was a circle, and the other an oval. To me they broke nicely requiring minimal grinding to finish up. Is it practical to score the glass with the laser 1 to 3 times to obtain the shapes needed for various projects. Is the good ole cutter better scoring than the laser. Has anyone tried this with any degree of sucess. I'm thinking of trying some stained glass work since the investment appears to be mimimal. My thinking was that scoring with the laser would be more accurate and result in less waste. Is my thinking flawed?

Nick Napier

Napier's Laser Engraving

Kenneth Hertzog
12-16-2008, 11:42 AM
Nick

Have you tried it again?
did you raster or vector score the glass?

Ken

Nick Napier
12-16-2008, 2:27 PM
Hi Ken, I used vector cutting with all the scoring. Rastering might work, but would be very slow. I just used full pwr and about 20 percent spd. I think I ran it three times but may not be necessary. Didn't have much glass to work with. I have some more scrap pieces now, but can't seem to find the time from putting pictures on dogtags for ebay and the Christmas season. If you mess around and find out anything, let me know. woodworknick@yahoo.com Thanks PS I have a 45 watt Epilog machine.

Nick

Darren Null
12-16-2008, 4:16 PM
There's been a couple of threads on this:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=73303
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=66806
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=37159

I can tell you it doesn't work with a 10W laser. Beyond that, opinions vary.

Darryl Hazen
12-16-2008, 4:36 PM
Nick,

Only one question. Does it make sense to use a $20,000 piece of equipment to do something a $3.00 glass cutter can do? I have both and prefer the good old fashioned glass cutter.

Joe Pelonio
12-16-2008, 5:11 PM
I do stained glass and use a $15 self-oiling glass cutter. I had no luck with the laser, but it may be because I use a lot of specialty glass that has a coarse texture, sort of like slate. Having used the hand tool for so many years I'm used to it and it's actually faster than loading up the laser and having to deal with the artwork files. Now if it cut all the way through, I'd be in!

When I do have the artwork as a vector file I used to pen plot it on the vinyl plotter, then cut up the paper pattern by hand, but now I'll use the laser to cut the pattern out using card stock. That's a time saver, unless I am hand drawing the design.