Using the Soda lime settings and caliper measuring the glass to match thickness but no matter what we do it will break the glass 80-90% of the time. this is a brand new machine with about 4 hours cut time. the cut bed is getting beat up but there are plenty of clean areas on it. We even cut the pieces down smaller but it cracks even those.
Is there a different piece pressure setting or will the lead in help here or need to put something under the glass or what are we doing wrong?
Hi @JasonMarshall thanks for joining the community forum and sharing your concern!
We can work around some of the glass cracking issues by processing glass with the following two things:
The following items have been tested in-house on multiple glass sheets and have had great success in order to produce glass cut-outs without too much concern for the bed warping.
There are even some community made 3D printed washers and other recommendations found in this post! (Link)
Where does the glass break? At the pierce point, near your screws (or whatever you use to anchor the glass to the bed), during the middle of a cut, near tabs?
We’ve found that a beat-up bed or screwing down glass too tightly can cause some fracturing issues. (We stopped using screws altogether and started using custom-made 3d printed toothpick anchor things that work well. Turns out metal and glass don’t work well.)
Great suggestions thank you! It always happens (for us at least) at the pierce point. We are also thinking it might just be cheap poorly annealed glass as well. I have made some 3d printed doodads for holding in place as well.
I place a sheet of corrugated plastic poster board horizontally under the glass before screwing the glass down. This has been a game changer for me. It helps to support the glass, yet cushion the impact of the pierce. I order the sheets precut to 12x18 and cut them down to match the size of the glass blank. The corrugated plastic is sacrificial, but the small cost is worth it. It’s the same material the bed is made from and not only does it result in more successful cuts, it also preserves the use of the beds so they last longer. I can cut glass that’s as thin as 3/32" wide between cuts! The only thing you need to be careful of are large deterioration holes (craters) in the cutting bed, as the bed will not be able to properly support the corrugated plastic when making small shapes.
12x18 Corrugated Plastic
Or save a few bucks, if you don’t mind cutting them in half.
18x24 Corrugated Plastic
@SlateCraftUSA this is genius! thank you and ordered.
i do not do a lot of glass but do use it for testing because it cuts faster than pretty much anything else. i have never had glass break during cutting but i do not screw it down i use weights known to an old graphics person like myself as whales.
i have cut a few intricate glass pieces just for fun including a cannabis leaf with very think sections. nothing has broken yet.
the Wazer is so close to useless for most purposes that i think i might get in to stained glass because that looks like where the machine actually might excel. it cuts fast and you generally do not need to worry much about kerf width if you make the parts a little small.
this is an interesting idea, I may have to try this!
Someone on one of the FB groups also suggested using hot glue gun instead of screwing down which I liked the idea as could add it to several points around the glass.
Need to find my glue gun…