@apix was nice enough to send me some dichroic glass to play around with! I ran it through a few tests - nothing too exciting, just trying to figure out the effect of different power levels.
Verdict is - you can definitely etch dichroic glass! And it looks awesome!
The surface texture in the etched area is really interesting.
It is almost like the glass breaks out in little flakes.
Now I really can’t wait to play with a Glow forge!
I thought so too. Like heat or stress fractures. The difference in reflection due to separate powe levels (I assume) is interesting as well. Thanks @aeva!
AWESOME! Thanks a lot for testing it out! When you get the new power supply I could send some nicer pieces, These are single coated dichroic but they make some that are 30 layers that look amazing!.
This opens up tons of new ideas for me! I love it!
-Dan D
Nice test - that totally makes sense. The color effect on dichroic glass is a specific chemical / metal wash on one side of the glass. Thus this could be done on any coated art glass like irid too.
I’m interested to see whether etching a curved line onto glass will allow me to then socre (cut) the glass along that line.
(Among my hobbies is glassblowing and glass kilnforming.)
Yes, exactly as shown in the video Joe posted. I’ve cut many a straight line (with assistance from a straight rule), and circles with a circle cutter. But my hand isn’t steady enough for nice curves.
In terms of what you can cut in glass with a score line, it’s just about any shape accept for inside angles or really tight inside curves. Meaning you can’t cut pac man out of a circle of glass. The break wouldn’t stop at the inside point, it would continue through make his jaw fall off.
And then there is Jack Storms use of optical glass. Not really Glowforge relevant that I can discern at the moment, but still an amazing technique. Who needs diamonds when you have sculptures like this:
That is super cool! I was actually trying to describe doing it on one sheet of glass. These were the best examples I could find since the last time I had access to a sandblaster was before smart phones so I don’t have any pictures. http://www.janetzambai.net/sandblasting_000.htm
It is a lot easier than you’d think it is, the hardest part is not cutting all the way through the glass by accident.