As Nick Lowe sang, "I love the sound of breaking glass"; well at least I thought I did.
My design has very specific measurements and many, did I say many, repeats. Having given it some thought I needed a solution that would help speed up the process while adding quality control into the work (better built in that afterwards - Honda motors established that way back in the 1960's). Time to build a jig.
This jig allows me to cut the 9omm, 30mm and 12mm sections of glass I need.
Well, it is one thing planning for quality control however it is another realising it.One thing I hadn't counted on was the quality of the glass. System 96 has had some problematic years having been closed down as Spectrum, being bought over, relocating its plant to Mexico and then starting production and distribution. It was always a buttery smooth glass with a silky cutting scoring sound and a soft breaking click; easy and precise and dependable. Wow! I was not expecting such a marked change. The variation in finish and cutting was astonishing. I had glass shearing off at impossible angles, shelling and overhangs of edges and that is only the cutting. The texture, flatness and thickness of the glass was terrible.
The images above show the variation in thickness of the same number of layers of glass.
If I was going for a low temperature fuse then it had to be hot enough to flat curvy glass but not with the result that the appearance softened - I couldn't achieve this so I had to suffer the rounding off and accept a load more cold working.
If I'm working to specific measurements (everything subject to 3mm glass thickness) then how do you cope with glass that varies in thickness from 2mm to 4.5mm all in one sheet and one colour? I didn't realise this issue until my first load of fusing came out of the kiln. This impacted on my cutting jig arrangement, slowed down production, compromised sizing, created loads more cold working and used my glass up faster than planned for.
Remember I had planned for contingency and had said, never underestimate cold working. I hadn't but then I hadn't planned for such bad glass. Oh dear, do I have some trying weeks ahead......
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