Glass Cutters: An Introduction
Like its namesake suggests, a glass cutter is used to divide large surfaces of glass into more manageable pieces. Physically, a glass cutter comes in the form of a hand tool made from metal and is about six inches long. One end of the cutting tool will be attached to a V-shaped cutting wheel that is either
made from tungsten carbide or hardened steel. It is vital to select the right type of cutter based on your preference and purpose because there are quite a lot to choose from the market.
Notable Glass Cutters:
What It Looks Like
One would think that a glass cutter should be as hardcore in size in order to cut through glass, but the truth is that the diameter of the cutting wheel is not that much larger than the diameter of a pencil. As the cutting wheel will easily warm itself up due to the heat transfer involved in the cutting process, most glass cutters also come with self-lubricating cutting oil as well. Either light oil or paraffin is used to oil the surface between the wheel and the glass.
How It Works
In order to cut glass with a glass cutter, the hand tool is rolled against the surface of the glass. This rolling mechanism causes the cutting wheel to graze against the rigid structure of the glass, which then creates a shallow indentation on the surface.
When pressure is applied to both sides of the glass, the glass will neatly break along the indented line, as opposed to any other propagation direction. Do note that tempered glass cannot be cut using a glass cutter as its micro structure will cause the glass to shatter, instead of break apart. The glass cutter is mostly used to cut annealed glass.
Mass Production Cutting
Every day, large sheets of glass is cut in order to meet the demand of glass around the world. After all, glass is needed in households, in architectural buildings and in our transportation system (among many other things). Manually cutting glass with a glass cutter is simply not time efficient anymore.
In glass factories, glass is cut using a computer-assisted computerized numerical control (CNC) glass cutting table. Once scores of lines are created on the large sheets of glass, the workers at the factory manually break apart the pieces of glass by hand. These individual sheets of glass are then known as lites.
Challenges of Cutting Glass
While using a glass cutter does make glass cutting easier, there is a fair amount of skill and technological know-how required to ensure that the glass is cut quickly and beautifully.
For example, an amateur wielding a glass cutter may cause the cut edge of the glass to be jagged. To counter this hazardous problem, most factories further polish the edges of the glass to smoothen out all the sharp corners.
Most folks also encounter problem handling the glass even after they've gone through it with the glass cutter as well. One of the most common problems when it comes to handling cut glass is that the sheets may not break as evenly as one would like.
A simply but time consuming solution would be to apply the glass cutter once more to trim off the extra glass bits. Another option would be to use special pliers capable of snapping off bits of extra glass.
On the other hand, there are also those who suffer from the problem of actually getting the glass to break, even after they have utilized the glass cutter. This problem is mostly due to the thickness of the glass itself. The thicker your glass is, the harder it will be to break. If you are cutting a glass that is thin (i.e. about 1.6mm), chances are your glass will crack correctly according to the score line that you have created. However, a quarter inch plate glass will be much more challenging to break in half.
Besides these technical problems, the quality of the broken glass also depends on the technique and experience employed by the craftsmen.
The Art of Breaking Glass
Every glass cutter knows the three basic methods of breaking glass.
In the first method, the operator will use two hands to hold on to the edge of the glass to make sure that it is perpendicular to the score. The correct way of holding the edges is to have your thumbs on the top surface and your forefingers under the glass sheet. Next, rotate both hands outward to break the glass along the line.
The second method involves placing one finger under the sheet of glass, directly under the indented line. Next, lift the edge of the glass in one smooth motion and exert a small horizontal force. This method is faster than the first method, but it is also much trickier.
These two methods are meant to be used on the glass cutting table, but the third method is meant for smaller sheets of glass that can be placed along the table edge. To perform the third method of breaking glass, simply position the overhanging bits of glass over the edge of a table and snap the unwanted bits off by pressing on the glass in a downward motion.
