Thursday, July 12, 2012

Two Cutting Tips For Creating Professional Looking Stained Glass Suncatchers

These two cutting tips for creating professional looking stained glass suncatchers are basic and easy to remember.

Inevitably, even professional glass cutters make a bad score now and then.

When you do make a bad score, remember not to re-score the same line on the same side of the glass.

All this does is make the cutting wheel on your glass cutter dull.

Re-scoring the same line also reduces your chances of making a clean break.

When you do make a bad score and must follow the original score line, just turn your work over and follow the original score on the reverse.

99 percent of the time you will get a clean break when you follow this simple tip.

Listen for a crisp, smooth consistent sound as you score your glass.

You can get the "crisp" cutting sound by applying even pressure on the score and running the score at a uniform speed.

If you get a scratchy sound when scoring, you are applying too much pressure and are probably moving to slow.

Always concentrate on applying an even pressure and a uniform speed when scoring stained glass. Remember that all cutters are not equal.

Different size cutting wheels require different cutting pressures, as do cutting wheels with different cutting angles.

Experience using each individual glass cutter is the only way to learn how much pressure is needed to make a perfect score.

If you're in the mood, you can always pull out a bathroom scale and actually measure the amount of pressure needed to make a score, but experience is the best teacher.

The type of glass you are cutting also makes a difference when scoring.

Some types of glass like opalescent, will not make any sound when correctly scored, while others like window pane glass will make a unique crisp "zinging" sound.

These two cutting tips for creating professional looking stained glass suncatchers should help you out if you're having trouble getting clean edge cuts.


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