Here are some basic steps to sandcarving glass with a two stage sandcarving method. It is just one way to etch glass. You can see some of the popular ways by going to the main glass etching page. If you have read my ebook or read through the site, it discusses this as the major reason to use a pressure pot sandblaster.
Through a series of sandblasting stages, you can carve a 3 dimensional shape into the glass. This is very basic and can get more advanced. If you would like to know more about the advanced ways, please leave a comment below.
So here are the basic steps to sandcarve glass with a sandblaster. It is a simple 2 stage sandcarving.
First, place your stencil on the glass and cut out the pattern with a knife by following the lines. This example is with a flower that you can download for free at the glass etching pattern page. You will need to observe the stencil design. As you can see, I marked areas of the cut stencil with numbers. the number 1 means its the first blasting and the deepest to be carved. The number 2 means its the second blasting and is a light etch. Remove the number one areas of the stencil or the areas that would be closer to the observer when looking at. The picture below shows the first sandcarving stage ready to be blasted:
caption id="attachment_84" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="First stage ready to be sandblasted."
/caption
Below is a picture of the first stage deeply sandcarved with a pressure pot sandblaster:
caption id="attachment_87" align="aligncenter" width="257" caption="1st stage done"
/caption
After you have sandcarved the glass deep, then you can begin peeling back the stencil for the number 2 stage. Remember, you can mark the areas with a sharpe marker like I did. I marked the stencil areas with the number 2. As you can see, I pulled the areas and its ready to be lightly sandblasted below:
caption id="attachment_88" align="aligncenter" width="260" caption="Weeding vinyl stage two"
/caption
Then, for the final step after the second stage was lightly etched you can remove the stencil resist and clean up. Since I did a reverse etching which is the best way to sandcarve glass, you will need to flip the piece around as shown below:
caption id="attachment_89" align="aligncenter" width="246" caption="Here is the final glass carving with some light"
/caption
If you liked this simple sandcarving, please bookmark this page with the buttons below. I will have more for you soon.
- Tags: Dimensional Shape, Download Free, Ebook, Flower, Glass Etching, Marker, Number 1, Pressure Pot, reverse etching, Sandblaster, Sandcarving, Second Stage, Sharpe, Stencil Design
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PhotoResist Blow Out Problems: Solutions | Engraving and Etching News Feb 07 2010 at 3pm:
[...] Use a Finer Abrasive Grit: There could be a few things to consider, but the one that comes to mind is that the grit being used is too large. I personally use about 150 or 180 grit. I probably wouldn’t use anything larger in size than 100 grit (but my grit standards are set at least 120 and finer). Sometimes they don’t emphasis this enough, but the finer the grit is, the less blow off problems you will usually have and the thinner the vinyl stencil can be. I talked about that in the ebook a little bit also. Alot of times, I will actually do some sandcarving with a 3 mil vinyl with a fine grit. Works fairly nice. By the way here is some more steps to follow for glass sandcarving. [...]
