Duplicating Glue Glass

My house is very old and therefore has a lot of character. One of my favourite features is a beautiful set of french doors with etched glass panels. Unfortunately, the glass is very old and delicate and two of the panels broke when some items fell over and hit the door. My question is, can the glow forge be used to ‘duplicate’ etched glass. I was thinking that instead of having the glass custom made, it would be wonderful to be able to simply pull out one of the intact panels and place it in the bed, get the image and then simply place a couple new pieces of clear glass in the bed and etch out the exact design. This would probably save me a fortune that I would much rather put into materials to use in the glow forge to make custom collars and dog tags to give to my clients as gifts when they have their dogs groomed in my shop.

I make stained glass panels as a hobby. From the small picture, what you have looks to be what is called glue chip. That glass is still readily available at most glass stores.

Thanks for the quick reply on that. That pic was just a quick grab from online to give an idea… here is a close up of the actual glass. Is glue chip the pattern or the type of glass?

Glue chipping is a process by which that pattern is formed on glass.
You basically put glue on the glass and let it dry.
As it hardens and contracts it chips the glass, and when you pull it off the chips come with it.

You could probably take a really good picture of one pane and get something similar with your glowforge. You may also want to google “make glue chip glass”. It is fairly easy to do, but beware that getting the patterns to match may be very difficult.

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Oh cool. I’ll look that up. But I am not very crafty. Who would think glue would be strong enough to ‘chip’ glass… wow.

Crazy, I know, and the best glue to use is old fashioned hide glue!
Not a good process for vegetarians…

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Not a problem for me!!! lol

This is going on the short list!
Sandblaster-Check
Vinyl Cutter-Check
Glass-Check
Rawhide glue-Locally available

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But to answer your question… definitely seems possible to engrave. You might want to use a camera or flatbed scanner, though, as the lighting in the Glowforge may not be suited to scanning frosted glass.

Or apply water based paint to the glass to make a print on paper. Scan the stamped paper and edit to perfection. Dont even have to remove the glass.

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depends on whether it’s easier to remove the glass or get the paint out of those hard to reach areas

True. Waterbased paint, water spray gun, paintbrush, cloth or papertowel. Depends on how the glass is fixed. But even if you only copy the main part of the glass you can duplicate the images and line then up or otherwise edit.

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I thought about scanning a piece to really get the detail since generally for glass, under lighting tends to bring out more detail. Thanks for putting this forum in place. I can’t believe the amazing help people are giving. I have found tips for things to do when I get my GF as well as other tips for other crafts. Seems as though the GF family is a great family to be a part of.

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I’ll agree with that :slight_smile:

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