AndyUK's Build - 1.2x1.0m Gantry

[AndyUK]

Evening Folks.

One of my original aims for this machine had been to help with the other half's glass work. We've made jigs, and aluminium bead making tools, but until now haven't touched glass itself.

I kinda expected to need a water cooling trough, and to use a diamond burr to grind the glass away. Recently though, we stumbled on some people using a scoring wheel without any of that faff and thought we'd give it a try. Wheel cost us a couple of quid and is a drag style.

I first probed the surface because it's not spring loaded yet, so you'll hear the machine doing some funky Z adjustments as it goes.








Anyhow, she's delighted with the results, mainly because the CNC maintains a perfect perpendicular to the score line, so the pieces break out really nicely in comparison to amateurs cutting manually!!

Here's our first test piece where we cut a large hexagon and lots of small diamonds before a brief trip to the kiln:



All float glass so far, we'll start using the good quality stuff next for a real project :)