Etched Glass - Not Laser Made

Ive been using a Cameo for my T shirt business and its an amazing little machine! Can only recommend it.

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I agree about the Cameo. I use my Cameo almost daily. There was a little bit of a learning curve with it, but once I got it down I can make all kinds of stuff.

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I am curious what the process is for making the mask on the fish glass.

The fish eyes are floating pointsā€¦ so do you have a small eye circle that you manually place per eye, or do you have more than 1 mask, with each mask being a solid piece that wraps around the glass?

I cut the stencil as one piece,weed out the area to be etched then apply transfer tape sheet to keep the floating bits in place. As the glass Iā€™m using dies not have straight vertical sides (theyā€™re curved), I had to cut my stencil into pieces before applying them to the glass. I general this worked fairly well, there were still some bubbles, but the sandblasting process still worked fine.

Jacob - here is a picture of two cut stencils with one weeded.

Once both are weeded, Iā€™ll apply transfer tape, cut them into smaller pieces (due to the curved nature of the glass) and apply them to the glass. Yes, each glass gets a new stencil that is hand applied then sandblasted. Certainly not a process for mass production :slightly_smiling:

Ah, there is not quite a closed connection at the fishā€™s mouth. So the piece is still kind of solid. But the transfer tape to apply is a great idea, since even with that connection, the body of the fish would easily droop if you just drape the mask on the glass.

Way nifty :slight_smile: I hadnā€™t planned to get transfer tape, as I donā€™t mind the smokey effect on wood when you laser it. But doing things like this makes it a very worthwhile material to have available.

The connection at the fishā€™s mouth is just due to the design / shape and youā€™re correct it would not be enough to hold the body in play without the transfer tape.

Thanks for your interest in this project.

Transfer tape is very handy. Without it you canā€™t transfer complex designs at all. I would suggest paper transfer tape too, because with it you can do a wet application of vinyl to glass and metal surfaces. Might as well have the option. I like this medium-tack paper tape. Itā€™s also cheap enough that you could use it as a protective layer during cuts. http://www.uscutter.com/GreenStar-Layflat-Classic-Transfer-Tape-Medium-Tack-Assorted-Widths

As to cutting the plastic tub for the blasting booth, I did it like @printolaser suggested ā€“ drill a lot of little holes, and then used a utility knife to cut in between them. The hole you make this way is ragged but itā€™s also concealed by the toilet flange so it doesnā€™t really matter.

I would have tried a circular cutting tool like @jbv posted if I had one because the drilling method is tedious.

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Since I have no laserā€¦yetā€¦and have no sandblasting setup, I wanted to try ArmourEtch. This was my second tryā€¦on an old Mexican glass. Since I prefer a martini occasionally, I went with that theme. It was a lot of fun. I have many, many pieces of glass around the house that may fall prey to this. I used a reusable stencil vinyl. When I get a laser someday, :wink: what can I use to cut stencils, since vinyl is taboo? The stencil cutting is the labor intensive partā€¦the rest is easy.

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Very nice. Youā€™re right with your comment about other glass falling pray to etching as I find this very addictive with all of the design possibility and the great results.

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I tried to experiment with ArmourEtch this weekend but found my old bottle of it dried up.

There are options for laser-cutable stencils. Iā€™m looking at this but I donā€™t currently have access to a laser to test it.

http://www.laserbits.com/rus-019-polyester-stencil-sheet-5-pk-12x12.html

I also plan to try cutting stencils using scrap vinyl from decal printing on my Silhouette Curio.

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Gin or vodka? Iā€™m a gin man myself. Nice example there. Crying out for some Bombay sapphire.

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That is good gin.

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Iā€™ve given some thought to buying a Silhouette, but not sure I can justify the extra expense, not to mention that my work area is incredibly small. I would have no counter/workspace left for anything else. I think Iā€™ll wait until Iā€™ve been able to make some things with my Glowforge so I can see what direction my creative self is heading. Thanks for the link.

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Gin, gin, gin. And yes, my favorite, tooā€¦Bombay. A man after my own heart! :slight_smile: ( I donā€™t mind vodka in a pinch.)

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Just looked at that laser safe stencil material. It says itā€™s rigid, which would make it difficult to use on curved surfaces like a drinking glass, etc. I know that the reusable stencil stuff can be cut in a Silhouette, so that may eventually be the way for me to go. For now though, hand-cutting will have to suffice.

I was pretty sure I found some flexible stencil material somewhere that was laser-safe. Iā€™ll let you know if I come across it again. I already have a customer lined up if Iā€™m able to do glass etching reliably.

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Thank you. That would be great.

You may want to investigate photo-resist masks, specifically Ikonics RapidMask and Rayzist SR3000. With a photo process you can do much finer details than with vinyl.

Also putting some tape on drill or cutting location helps prevent tearout. You can use a dremel cutting tool too.

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