Glass is a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usages in the industry. In this article, we will discuss on Glass Cutting Process along with its Introduction, Properties, Types, Advantages, Disadvantages, and Applications.
Examples of glass include window panes, optoelectronics, tableware, etc. But, do you know that Glass is made up of liquid sand?
Understand the formation of glass in an easiest way:
(Waste Recycled Glass +Sand + Calcium Carbonate + Sodium Carbonate) --> Heating -->Annealing-->Finishing.
I think you had understood, how the glass is really made? But do you know what are the various properties of glass...
These are some of the properties of Glass:
After knowing the properties of glass, we can come to know, how to cut it...So let's see the procedure of cutting glass with the help of Glass cutting tools.
To cut the glass, we use the glass cutter tool which has the principle of Scribe and Break.
The glass cutting tools which are used to cut the glass are as follows.
The explanation to the glass cutting tools are presented below.
In the Middle Ages, glass was cut with a heated and sharply pointed rod of iron. The Diamond can also act as cutting material for glass. Nowadays we used different methods to cut the glass.
A Glass Cutting Tool consists of 3 Parts
It is a small wheel attached to the glass cutter whose role is to cut the glass plate w.r.t. the dimensions easily. The glass after cut by cutting wheel has sharp corners. So, care must be taken during operation.
A glass cutter more commonly uses a small cutting wheel made of hardened steel or Tungsten Carbide of 4–6 mm in diameter with a V-shaped profile called a "hone angle" is used.
The greater the hone angle of the wheel, the sharper the angle of the V, and the thicker the piece of glass it is designed to cut. The honing angle on most hand-held glass cutters is 120°.
After marking the glass with the cutting wheel, the glass cutter has to be inserted into the corners of glass and tilt it so that it can break w.r.t the mark made.
The ball attached at the end of the glass cutter is used for tapping the glass piece if any irregularities are present at the corners of glass after the cut.
This is the explanation of the "wheel cutting" tool in a detailed way which is one of the Glass Cutting tools.
So, let's see the detailed explanation of CO2 Laser cutting process in a detailed way.
Cutting the glass with conventional methods (Wheel Cutting) as stated above uses the principle of Scribe and Break.
In the sense, you need to scribe on the surface of the glass w.r.t. the dimensions and Break that particular part.
By doing so, relatively low scribing quality results in the formation of micro-cracks and that leads to the damage of glass.
In addition to that, various time-consuming processes like grinding, masking, and etching are necessary to remove the damage that had been introduced by mechanical processes (Conventional Methods).
Using a laser for the glass cutting process avoids all the limitations stated above.
By this laser cutting, the Straight, angled, curved, and chamfered contours are possible.
The laser beam is used to cut different materials like metal, wood, rubber, glass, plastics, etc.
Laser cutting machines are equipped with computer-controlled programming that helps to do the work more efficiently and easily. By this, a high degree of accuracy is maintained.
This is the detailed explanation of two types of cutting tools used in Glass Cutting Process.
Let's see the advantages, disadvantages of the Glass Cutting Process along with its applications.
The applications of Glass Cutting Process are as follows.
The advantages of Laser Cutting Process are as follows.
The disadvantages of Laser Cutting Process are as follows.
This is a detailed explanation of the Glass Cutting Process along with its Introduction, Properties, Types, Advantages, Disadvantages, and Applications.
Glass cutter work works on the principle of Scribe and Break. With the help of the parts of the glass cutter, the glass can be cut easily.
3 or 4 mm thick glass can be cut by the glass cutter
The best tools to cut glass are Wheel Cutter and Laser Cutter.
More Resources:
Injection Moulding Process
Compression Moulding Process
Blow Moulding Process