On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

On Jul 14, 10:50*pm, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. *Both surfaces of the break are uneven. *How can I
smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

You can't, at least not easily or well. If you've lost pieces of the
glass when it broke you'll always see the break and repair. Having a
piece made would cost a lot, so I'd look for a substitute pedestal,
whether of glass or stone. An upside down heavy glass ashtray might
do the trick.

R

On Saturday, July 14, 2012 7:52:29 PM UTC-7, RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 14, 10:50*pm, gary > wrote:
>
> On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. *Both surfaces of the break are uneven. *How can I
> smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

You can't, at least not easily or well. If you've lost pieces of the
glass when it broke you'll always see the break and repair. Having a
piece made would cost a lot, so I'd look for a substitute pedestal,
whether of glass or stone. An upside down heavy glass ashtray might
do the trick.

R

Seeing the break and repair is acceptable.

I was thinking about using an extra-fine sandpaper or file on both surfaces until they were smooth and matching for gluing.

On Saturday, July 14, 2012 7:50:04 PM UTC-7, gary wrote:
On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

It's probably better to just use a type of glue that can fill wide gaps, and there are special epoxies made just for glass that refract light by almost the same amount that glass does. One such epoxy is or was sold for fixing car windshield cracks (not the 1-part acrylic or polyester resin that's a lot more common but is made only for bull's eye cracks; this 2-part epoxy could also handle star cracks), or check fish aquarium supplies or crafts stores. Regular epoxy will also work but will be more visible. If you can't find anything locally, contact Loctite and 3M.

gary writes:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both
surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken
surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

Those edges may be uneven but I have a suspicion the two parts will
fit together fine.

--
Dan Espen

On Jul 14, 11:17*pm, gary wrote:
On Saturday, July 14, 2012 7:52:29 PM UTC-7, RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 14, 10:50*pm, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. *Both surfaces of the break are uneven. *How can I
smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

You can't, at least not easily or well. *If you've lost pieces of the
glass when it broke you'll always see the break and repair. *Having a
piece made would cost a lot, so I'd look for a substitute pedestal,
whether of glass or stone. *An upside down heavy glass ashtray might
do the trick.

R

Seeing the break and repair is acceptable.

I was thinking about using an extra-fine sandpaper or file on both surfaces until they were smooth and matching for gluing.

If the pieces don't fit together then no amount of hand sanding will
have any appreciable effect in any reasonable amount of time, and will
in fact ruin what is the best fit you'll achieve - the original clean
glass break.

You'd be sanding for hours and it would look like crap and would not
fit together as well as it does now. Glass is ground with a diamond
wet stone. Glass and porcelain break with sharp clean lines and can
usually be glued back together leaving only a hairline bit of evidence
of the break unless there is some material missing. Even if there is
some glass shards missing, there will be one way - the correct and
only way - that the pieces will fit together. Glass also doesn't
break 'bigger'. So there is no material that needs to be removed.

If you can't fit the pieces together, it's either because you haven't
tried the right arrangement of pieces yet, or because there are pieces
missing.

R

The stem did NOT break cleanly so the broken surfaces do not align.

Why can't I use a diamond whetstone to get two flat surfaces that I can then glue together?

On Sun, 15 Jul 2012 09:54:23 -0700 (PDT), gary
wrote:

The stem did NOT break cleanly so the broken surfaces do not align.

Why can't I use a diamond whetstone to get two flat surfaces that I can then glue together?

You can. Go for it. Getting perfect alignment may be difficult
though.

gary wrote:

The stem did NOT break cleanly so the broken surfaces do not align.

You mean pieces are missing and/or you can't figure out how to put
Humpty back together again.

Why can't I use a diamond whetstone to get two flat surfaces that I can then glue together?

Feel free. It'll work, but do me a favor and keep a log of the time
you spend getting the two surfaces to mate better than they do now.
Oh, and take before and after pictures so we can see the improvement.

You do understand that you're basically asking, "Hey, I had an
accident with my car. How much time will it take to fix it?", right?
If you posted a picture I'd be better able to tell you if you were
going to waste a little time or a whole lot of time.

R

On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:
On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?


When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a course
wire screen to rub them down.

Frank wrote:
On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken surfaces so I can align them for gluing?


When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a course
wire screen to rub them down.

That's interesting. Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?

R

RicodJour wrote:
Frank wrote:
On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both
surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken
surfaces so I can align them for gluing?


When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
course wire screen to rub them down.

That's interesting. Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?


Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like hardware
cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating the contents of a
beaker over a Bunsen burner.

A few swipes with such on a freshly-cut piece of glass tubing smoothed out
the cut.

On Monday, July 16, 2012 7:44:11 AM UTC-4, HeyBub wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
> Frank wrote:
>> On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:
>>
>>> On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both
>>> surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken
>>> surfaces so I can align them for gluing?
>>>
>>
>> When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
>> course wire screen to rub them down.
>
> That's interesting. Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
> other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?
>

Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like hardware
cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating the contents of a
beaker over a Bunsen burner.

A few swipes with such on a freshly-cut piece of glass tubing smoothed out
the cut.

Exactly.

On Jul 16, 7:44*am, "HeyBub" wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
Frank wrote:
On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. *Both
surfaces of the break are uneven. *How can I smooth the broken
surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
course wire screen to rub them down.

That's interesting. *Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?

Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like hardware
cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating the contents of a
beaker over a Bunsen burner.

I'm curious how you know what FRANK did. Oh, wait, you don't.
Considering that I've never worked in a lab with glass tubing and
wasn't sitting next to him, neither do I - that's why I asked the
question.

I do stained glass work and have for, hell, 25 years or so. I started
doing it as a hobby, did some work for some clients and got paid very
well for it, thank you very much, and now it's a hobby again. I'm not
a noob when it comes to glass. I have a couple of glass grinders and
a small catalog's worth of glass tools. I apologize for not providing
a more complete resume when I asked the question. BTW, glass-stud,
what's your background?

A few swipes with such on a freshly-cut piece of glass tubing smoothed out
the cut.

What's your estimation of the cross sectional area of the glass tubing
that Frank smoothed? Probably a very small fraction of one square
inch, right? And was Frank trying to flatten the cut - that is, grind
the glass to make two smooth mating surfaces where the joint line is
approaching invisibility, or just knocking off the sharp edges so
people wouldn't get cut? Very different things, no?

The OP is asking about grinding down glass and hasn't given any
information about the size of the glass pedestal for the figurine and
how badly the thing doesn't fit. I'm imagining there's something on
the order of a couple or three square inches of mating surfaces.
Might be more might be less, but that is a grinding job, not a knock
off the edges job anyway you look at it.

There's also the question of relative hardness. Regular steel can
vary between 4 and 5 on the relative scale and hardened steel is
somewhere around 7 to 8. Glass on the other hand can vastly vary from
as low as 5.5 all the way to 7+ all depending on the chemical
composition. This is why people that work with glass use diamonds or
something that is definitely harder than the glass. So they're not
sitting there scrubbing away glass and steel slowly until they're blue
in the face.

Have you ever seen a piece of glass break and the glass _distorts_?
Didn't think so. Glass breaks cleanly. That is what glass does. It
either breaks cleanly and all the pieces can be reassembled (assuming
you have the time and patience), or pieces of glass go missing.

If the OP posted a picture he's already have a definitive answer. A
diamond whetstone would work, but getting two surfaces to mate, and
not introduce rounding or breaking the flat plane of the surface when
they're mated is the real trick.

I have the right tools, so I'd just use my grinder. If I didn't have
the grinder I'd use the edge of a diamond blade on a wet saw (tile or
tub saw to some - and make sure it's _non-segmented_!).

You on the other hand, are a tool. Answering a question that was not
directed at you, and making guesses about the intended recipient's
answer IS an example of one of your many, many in-thread off-topic
posts. You have obfuscation down to a science.

See? You did my homework for me. Thanks!

R

On Jul 16, 7:51*am, Frank wrote:
On Monday, July 16, 2012 7:44:11 AM UTC-4, HeyBub wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
> Frank wrote:
>> On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:
>>
>>> On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two.. *Both
>>> surfaces of the break are uneven. *How can I smooth the broken
>>> surfaces so I can align them for gluing?
>>>
>>
>> When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
>> course wire screen to rub them down.
>
> That's interesting. *Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
> other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?
>

Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like hardware
cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating the contents of a
beaker over a Bunsen burner.

A few swipes with such on a freshly-cut piece of glass tubing smoothed out
the cut.

Exactly.

So you used what was at hand to smooth the cut. Makes sense.
Now we need to determine what you mean by smooth and what was
involved.

Were you trying to flatten the cut - that is, grind the glass to make
two smooth mating surfaces where the joint line is approaching
invisibility, or just knocking off the sharp edges so people wouldn't
get cut?

What's your estimation of the typical cross sectional area of the
glass tubing you smoothed?

R

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:45:48 -0700 (PDT), RicodJour
wrote:



Have you ever seen a piece of glass break and the glass _distorts_?
Didn't think so. Glass breaks cleanly. That is what glass does. It
either breaks cleanly and all the pieces can be reassembled (assuming
you have the time and patience), or pieces of glass go missing.


Unless it's something valuable enough to pay a specialist, just use
super glue. Done it many times with clean breaks. If there's more
than a couple shards, it gets tossed.

--
Vic

On Jul 16, 8:54*am, Vic Smith wrote:
On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:45:48 -0700 (PDT), RicodJour

wrote:

Have you ever seen a piece of glass break and the glass _distorts_?
Didn't think so. *Glass breaks cleanly. *That is what glass does. *It
either breaks cleanly and all the pieces can be reassembled (assuming
you have the time and patience), or pieces of glass go missing.

Unless it's something valuable enough to pay a specialist, just use
super glue. *Done it many times with clean breaks. *If there's more
than a couple shards, it gets tossed.

That is the part I don't understand. What's so special about the
pedestal? Stupid things like upside down ashtrays/plates or even a
piece of mirror might provide a suitable replacement if the thing is
so difficult to repair. And, as usual, a picture saves a lot of
wasted time getting to an answer that sticks.

Somebody should plagiarize another newsgroup's FAQ, modify it, and
have some basic ground rules for newbie posters. It'd save everyone a
lot of grief.

Rule #1: Post some damn pictures!
Rule #2: Don't even bother reading Rule #3 unless you've completed
Rule #1.

R

On Jul 16, 9:05*am, RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 16, 8:54*am, Vic Smith wrote:

On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:45:48 -0700 (PDT), RicodJour

wrote:

Have you ever seen a piece of glass break and the glass _distorts_?
Didn't think so. *Glass breaks cleanly. *That is what glass does. *It
either breaks cleanly and all the pieces can be reassembled (assuming
you have the time and patience), or pieces of glass go missing.

Unless it's something valuable enough to pay a specialist, just use
super glue. *Done it many times with clean breaks. *If there's more
than a couple shards, it gets tossed.

That is the part I don't understand. *What's so special about the
pedestal? *Stupid things like upside down ashtrays/plates or even a
piece of mirror might provide a suitable replacement if the thing is
so difficult to repair. *And, as usual, a picture saves a lot of
wasted time getting to an answer that sticks.

Somebody should plagiarize another newsgroup's FAQ, modify it, and
have some basic ground rules for newbie posters. *It'd save everyone a
lot of grief.

Rule #1: *Post some damn pictures!
Rule #2: *Don't even bother reading Rule #3 unless you've completed
Rule #1.

R

What Rico says, post some pictures, they're worth thousands of
words!!!!!!!!

On 7/16/2012 8:51 AM, RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 16, 7:51 am, Frank wrote:
On Monday, July 16, 2012 7:44:11 AM UTC-4, HeyBub wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
> Frank wrote:
>> On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:
>>
>>> On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both
>>> surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken
>>> surfaces so I can align them for gluing?
>>>
>>
>> When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
>> course wire screen to rub them down.
>
> That's interesting. Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
> other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?
>

Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like hardware
cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating the contents of a
beaker over a Bunsen burner.

A few swipes with such on a freshly-cut piece of glass tubing smoothed out
the cut.

Exactly.

So you used what was at hand to smooth the cut. Makes sense.
Now we need to determine what you mean by smooth and what was
involved.

Were you trying to flatten the cut - that is, grind the glass to make
two smooth mating surfaces where the joint line is approaching
invisibility, or just knocking off the sharp edges so people wouldn't
get cut?

What's your estimation of the typical cross sectional area of the
glass tubing you smoothed?

R

Just smooth it down to prevent cuts. Mostly about 1/4 inch but any size
could be smoothed.

On Jul 16, 11:56*am, Frank wrote:
On 7/16/2012 8:51 AM, RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 16, 7:51 am, Frank wrote:

Exactly.

So you used what was at hand to smooth the cut. *Makes sense.
Now we need to determine what you mean by smooth and what was
involved.

Were you trying to flatten the cut - that is, grind the glass to make
two smooth mating surfaces where the joint line is approaching
invisibility, or just knocking off the sharp edges so people wouldn't
get cut?

What's your estimation of the typical cross sectional area of the
glass tubing you smoothed?

Just smooth it down to prevent cuts. *Mostly about 1/4 inch but any size
could be smoothed.

Right. That's what I thought. The OP, for whatever reason, is unable
to fit the two parts back together which means he's looking to create
two new mating surfaces. On one of your lab tubes the cross sectional
area is tiny. Link to obligatory handy-dandy tube calculator:
http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calcul...olids/tube.php

The OP's pedestal isn't made from 1/16" or 1/8" glass, and
consequently the area will be much greater, and grinding those
surfaces would take...let me see...he
http://end-of-the-world.calculator.com

The OP is asking a question like, "How much should a blue car cost?"
He just doesn't realize it. That's why posting a picture, besides
being obvious, is pretty much essential.

R

On Jul 16, 11:35*am, "hr(bob) "
wrote:
On Jul 16, 9:05*am, RicodJour wrote:

Somebody should plagiarize another newsgroup's FAQ, modify it, and
have some basic ground rules for newbie posters. *It'd save everyone a
lot of grief.

Rule #1: *Post some damn pictures!
Rule #2: *Don't even bother reading Rule #3 unless you've completed
Rule #1.

What Rico says, post some pictures, they're worth thousands of
words!!!!!!!!

I'm starting to think there's a conspiracy to _not_ post pictures
until we first waste those thousands of words guessing WTF an OP is
asking about.

R

RicodJour wrote:
On Jul 16, 7:44 am, "HeyBub" wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
Frank wrote:
On 7/14/2012 10:50 PM, gary wrote:

On my glass figurine, the glass pedestal has broken in two. Both
surfaces of the break are uneven. How can I smooth the broken
surfaces so I can align them for gluing?

When I worked in a lab, to smooth cut glass tubing we would use a
course wire screen to rub them down.

That's interesting. Was the coarse wire screen coated with emery or
other abrasive like that used for sanding drywall?

Of course not. It was a 4x4" bit of steel screening (looks like
hardware cloth) normally used as a support, on a ring, for heating
the contents of a beaker over a Bunsen burner.

I'm curious how you know what FRANK did. Oh, wait, you don't.
Considering that I've never worked in a lab with glass tubing and
wasn't sitting next to him, neither do I - that's why I asked the
question.

You on the other hand, are a tool. Answering a question that was not
directed at you, and making guesses about the intended recipient's
answer IS an example of one of your many, many in-thread off-topic
posts. You have obfuscation down to a science.

See? You did my homework for me. Thanks!


I was explaining how to use laboratory supports to chip away glass by
answering a direct question. I have no idea what Frank is up to, nor did I
comment on Frank's or anyone else's problem. I simply expanded on the
technique offered by another.

That you read something into my post(s) that is clearly not there explains
your agitation.

But all is not lost; I think there's a twelve-step program available to you.
It wouldn't hurt to check CraigsList...