RE: [ATM] Making glass blanks

["Timm Simpkins" <poduck@poducksworld.com>]

Tell me where to get cheap blanks larger than 12".  Also, cheap is relative
to the individual.  As far as glass dust, the only glass dust is from
working the glass, and would be no more prevalent than during the grinding
process.

The fact is, the actual melting of the glass neither creates nor requires
ANY glass dust.  People have been cutting mirrors out of plate glass, and
that is not considered any more possible to damage someone's lungs than
grinding a mirror.

As for annealing being the least of the expense, how much electricity do you
think it would take to anneal a 20" blank over a period of a week or two
with 7.5 kilowatt elements?  The annealing is the majority of the expense,
and 7.5 kilowatts is actually a pretty small amount of electricity to do a
blank that size.

Now, much of what you consider a blank, I consider almost the anti-blank.
The whole idea is to take a flat piece of glass and make a parabola in it to
reflect to a specific point.  It takes minutes to bevel the edge, and the
flatness of the surfaces does make a difference, but machining a surface
flat is actually accomplished fairly easily.  Any shed monkey can make a
glass milling machine.  All it takes is a milling head that can be made from
a couple pulleys and a washing machine motor and a moving surface underneath
it that is milled with the actual head so that the bed is exactly parallel
to it.  Other than that it's a simple matter of lead screws and bed ways.
That is of course considering that any milling of the glass is necessary at
all.

I might be unconventional, but I'm not an idiot.  I've done enough and seen
enough in my life to know that anything is possible.  I have a shop full of
"impossible to build at home" toys that I built at home from a crane to a
CNC lathe and mill, all made for less than a quarter of what it costs to buy
new, and all work perfectly.

I apologize for getting a bit frustrated with this post, but after 15 years
of everyone telling me I can't or shouldn't do things that I know I can or
should do, I get a bit defensive.  Not just for me, but for others that
might be deterred by this type of post.

There is danger in everything.  Working with glass that is approaching 3000
degrees is dangerous.  Working with electricity is dangerous.  Heck, washing
my hands in my bathroom sink next to all my wife's hair dryers, curling
irons, and miscellaneous other female power tools is endangering my life
also.  The fact is, if simple safety precautions are observed, nobody should
fear making their own glass.

Thank you,

Timm Simpkins


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