Q & A Mondays are answers to reader questions submitted via email or social media. All personal information has been removed for privacy reasons and messages have been edited for clarity. You may submit your own questions through the About/Contact page.
Q: Hi,
I read your blog suggesting a harbor freight saw with a 10″ mk diamond blade for cutting bottles. Which MK Blade model do you use? My searches have found several lapidary versions. (For example, MK-301 versus mk-303.)
Thanks!
Hi there, I very much liked the lapidary blade, the 303, the non segmented. It was the first blade I bought for my saw, since then I have also used both the glass blade and the porcelain tile blade. I did like both of them, however, they have pros and cons:
The 215GL cuts very smoothly with a very thin blade. The problem I ran into is it did warp out of shape after about 15 months and hundreds (literally) of bottles.
https://www.mkdiamond.com/tile/bld_glass_215gl.html
The 215 Premium porcelain tile blade also cuts smoothly, and is slightly thicker. I used that one for years with no warping, and ended up putting it back on the saw when the glass blade warped.
https://www.mkdiamond.com/tile/bld_wcon_215.html
So, it depends on what you are doing, if you need a narrow blade and have light to medium usage, the GL blade is great. If you are doing hard core production work, I’d recommend the 215 Premium.
Q: Hi Jodi, I believe a while back I saw where you use a BB to create a hole/hanger in glass. Is this correct? And if so, were your BB’s steel?Thanks for your help! Love your stuff.
A: I actually use a glob of bead release or kiln wash. You could use a kiln washed BB, although I could see that being messy and hard to coat because it’s so small. Here’s a link to the tutorial about this technique:
Fused in Pilot Holes for Easier Drilling
this technique doesn’t make a hole all the way through the glass, but it does about 80% of the work for you, which I still think is pretty awesome!
Q: I have some small pieces of flat tempered glass that I want to un-temper……..you have to heat it to 1000 degrees and then let cool at room temperature so then it can be cut….24″ x 32″ Do you have the capability to do such a thing?
A: Absolutely, as long as the tempered glass piece can fit in your kiln, it can be heated slowly to over annealing temperature, and then reannealed at 1060. This firing will un-temper the glass and it can then be cut and used the same as regular flat glass. I typically untemper glass in the same firing as slumping artwork, it works very well, and fills up my kiln nicely!
Q: Hi Jodi – I know that bottles generally are not compatible with each other, but have you tried combining Bombay Sapphire Bottles to create a much bigger piece? It would seem to make sense considering they must be made to the same recipe. I’m going to start testing soon but wondered if you’d already tried it?
A: Hi there, yes I have tried combining Bombay bottles, I’ve had several that were so incompatible with each other that the layers separated
horizontally and my glass peeled apart. I’ve also had ones that
worked. Bombay is the least predictable bottle glass that I’ve used so
far, so a big challenge.
If you go ahead, make sure if you can, that the marks on the bottoms of
the bottles match. The stash that I have appears to be made by at least
two different factories. The different factories use different
recipes. I would also keep the glass from each bottle separate until
you can do small test pieces just to make sure.
Good luck! Let me know if I can help with anything, I’m very interested
to see your test results. I’m not the biggest fan of Bombay bottles,
but they are so gorgeous I can’t give them up!