Thread: Glass scales....

I worked as a glass tech for about 2½ years.
I have glass drill bits and that takes a lot of time. VERY slow going and use premium drill bit coolant... OFTEN.

I have tossed around this idea, too. Here are my thoughts and maybe it will help you in the process.

1) Temper the glass. The last thing you would want is a ton of shards all over the floor and counter-tops cutting your feet up trying to clean up the mess. I would much rather clean up small cubes than tons of shards from the plate.

2) For impact reasons I was thinking of ¼". Anything thinner and I was thinking it would be too fragile. However, the thinner glass would have minimal flex but would snap quickly. Buuuuut... for the purpose of a test run (beta-test) I would use 1/16 since it would be easier to cut, sand, and drill. The glass is a lot cheaper, too and not to mention most glass shops toss out glass that would a perfect size for scales.

3) I would most certainly use a seam and polish. That would give a ever so small bevel on the edge to reduce being cut and give the outside edge a nice shine.

4) If you have the money, you can have a glass manufacturer/distributor do the work for you. I have on many occasions given them specs and they cut, seam and polish, drill then temper it. Sad part, they generally only take orders from glass companies and are not open to the public.

5) I would probably start with a square set of scales and goof around with the hole drilling and pinning to see if the idea is feasible before jumping in and making a masterpiece.

6) This would be the only razor I own that would be in a case when not being used to avoid breakage. Unless, of course, I get a nice razor that comes with a wooden box. Then it would only be proper to let it rest in there until the next morning.

Also, if you try to temper at home using a kiln... bah I can't remember the temps required for tempering... put in a small piece of glass with it. A 2"x2" scrap should be fine as you want to break that small piece when done to ensure the tempering process was done correctly. The idea is to inspect the breakage and if you see shards that resemble breaks that are characteristic of plate glass then it was done wrong. If you see a bunch of cube shapes and none of them come out looking like California with deep sharp edges then it was done correctly.

As a friendly reminder if you decide to temper, this is the last step. Once it is tempered it is not a good idea to sand, drill or attempt to shape it as it will *poof* turn into a bunch of cubes.

These are just some of the ideas I had been tossing around for the past week whenever I thought about it.

I certainly hope it helps you out in some way.