Glass etching

Herb Stoops said:

Harold that is a good question. I always thought that glass etching was with Flouric acid. But I know very little about that.

Herb

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Hydroflouric acid is nasty stuff that it is best to stay away from COMPLETELY!. If you get it on your skin, any skin, it will eat right through to the bone marrow.

With that, said, there are many ways to etch glass; acids, blasting, and mechanical etching. Most hobby type shops sell kits to acid etch, I have used templates or even simple taped up areas and a hand held spot blaster. Texture will depend on the medium used; fineness of sand, Black Beauty, etc.

I can't speak for the mechanical means. However, bits are obviously available and capable of performing this operation, as linked by UglySign. The only thing is, that, this is a "drag bit". it might be good for line etching but not for etching a field. I'm sure that there is a learning curve and I'm not quite sure how well tempered glass would take to a mechanical means without fracturing.

I'm sorry for posting that drag knife thing.
I am bent on glue-chipped glass and thats what I always think of.
Etching is nice but I find that glue-chipped glass is more appealing.
Once my machine gets here i'm going to try it out.

As for the drag knife on glass, you could make some nifty
fills if needed and come along with the etching creams or
mask it for mini-blasting. Lots of possibilities but I may have
gone the wrong direction to the topic.

Anyways... either do hand masking or have it cut and you
could also use a mini sand blaster. Diamond Drag will ruin masking I believe.
Here's a cheapie using Aluminum Oxide abrasive.
Badger Mini Sandblasting Kit - BLICK art materials

+1 on the Hydroflouric Acid >

okie GW said:

Maybe I am going the wrong direction with CNC etching. I have had a local trophy shop etch logos into glass.
Recently the business changed hands and this has become too costly. Maybe I should be asking what is the
best way to make a mask.

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Add a vinyl plotter to your arsenal for a mask. Im sure there
are smaller units out there you could pick up, load in the
vinyl mask, cut it, weed it out and start etching/blasting etc.
Xacto blades can do so much by hand and could get discouraging.
Vinyl plotters can only go so small before losing detail and alot of
stuff is small. Especially for trophies.

Are there other methods for super small graphics? Probably Laser?

Glastar has a neat mini sandblast system
that I've been interested in for years.