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Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

joshmillard.com

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Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#21

Post by joshmillard »

dfc wrote: post #14
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #4

My mom made some really amazing stained glass projects when I was a kid and I've always been fascinated by it. Recently I had the thought that the process could be singnificantly sped by using CNC/Waterjets or something else to help with the really time consuming cutting and fitting aspects. I've found a few instances where people have used CNC cutters with a diamond drag bit to help score the glass, and a few indust…

> almost entirely from curved pieces (a near impossibility with traditional scoring and breaking) I was a little surprised when I read this because it means the people at my local makerspace are magicians. There are tons of examples of curved stained glass as well as a lot of howtos on how to do it. The came glasswork page on wikipedia is full of stained glass with curves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Came_glasswork…

I'll agree that "a near impossibility" feels like a real big overstatement; curves are very doable and common in hand-cut glass. That's true even in my first piece, under discussion, which is chock full of curves. I talk a bit in the process diary about getting comfortable with doing curved breaks after being over-cautious with my first few bits of glass.

That said, I can see how a CNC approach could help with the speed of the process; shallow/simple curves are easy enough to do reliably, but deeper, more complex, and significantly concave curves require additional effort and planning, potentially a lot of manual work with grozing pilers to break out a concavity, and additional grinding to finish out the shape.

So being able to turn a machine process to some of those cuts would save a lot of manual effort and potentially get you right up to the final polish-grind stage in one go, which certainly sounds attractive for some kinds of design.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#22

Post by joshmillard »

daeken wrote: post #12
joshmillard wrote: post #8

Well, hey, that's me! Howdy folks.

Love the design, but I'm kind of envious of how easy you made this look! Haha. My wife and I got super into stained glass work for a while there, and while she kept getting better, I never really did. It's hard to do it well, so mad props to you for making it look so easy!

I was surprised and please how much I took to it, honestly; I went in cold and was prepared to not really get a knack for it.

But easy-looking is also a product of writing it up after the fact, and learning under good instruction; it was still a solid 20+ hours of work with a fair amount of cursing and bits of messing up and redoing stuff.

In any case, whether or not I caught on quicker than average, the process itself feels very accessible to me. I can recommend giving it a shot a lot more readily than I'd have guessed before I tried it myself.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#25

Post by greeneggs »

joshmillard wrote: post #8

Well, hey, that's me! Howdy folks.

Looks like a fun art project, thanks! As you say, there aren't too many tools needed. If you were doing this on your own, though, not part of a class, where would you get the glass? It looks like you had a nice variety of interesting pieces to choose from.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#26

Post by irrational »

joshmillard wrote: post #8

Well, hey, that's me! Howdy folks.

Now that you've learned how to do this in the class, how feasible would it be to do at home? It seems like the grinder would be the most difficult part to replicate at home. I imagine a woodworking router with some sort of diamond grinder bit couldn't be used since I think you said it has water running on the bit.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#27

Post by joshmillard »

irrational wrote: post #26
joshmillard wrote: post #8

Well, hey, that's me! Howdy folks.

Now that you've learned how to do this in the class, how feasible would it be to do at home? It seems like the grinder would be the most difficult part to replicate at home. I imagine a woodworking router with some sort of diamond grinder bit couldn't be used since I think you said it has water running on the bit.

Totally feasible! You could probably put a whole one-person workspace into about fifty square feet without getting cramped, less with some squeezing and multitasking, and I'd guess basic toolset would run you less than $500 retail.

The grinder I used is a pretty simple unit with a water reservoir tray under the grill that keeps the bit wet via a sponge feeder; probably about $100 new, used bargains if you go looking, but, yeah, water feed of some sort is key to the grinding working well on glass.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#28

Post by joshmillard »

greeneggs wrote: post #25
joshmillard wrote: post #8

Well, hey, that's me! Howdy folks.

Looks like a fun art project, thanks! As you say, there aren't too many tools needed. If you were doing this on your own, though, not part of a class, where would you get the glass? It looks like you had a nice variety of interesting pieces to choose from.

I got to use the studio's supply, so I haven't had to really sort out glass buying myself. And yeah, I was lucky to benefit from access to a really great collection of glass. But there are some commercial firms (Spectrum does very flat, transparent glass; Delphi does stuff with more character) and you can go haunt estate sales, watch for hobbyists getting out from under their supply, check with art schools, etc.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#29

Post by dfc »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #15
dfc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost entirely from curved pieces (a near impossibility with traditional scoring and breaking) I was a little surprised when I read this because it means the people at my local makerspace are magicians. There are tons of examples of curved stained glass as well as a lot of howtos on how to do it. The came glasswork page on wikipedia is full of stained glass with curves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Came_glasswork…

What you're missing is glass grinders (router) and band saws. Grinders use diamond abrasive bits and flood cooling. Glass bandsaws same deal. With those you can shape flat pieces any shape you want.

But you can also cut curved glass with traditional glass scoring? And this has been so for a long time.

Re: Making a Menger sponge in stained glass

#30

Post by Gibbon1 »

dfc wrote: post #29
Gibbon1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is glass grinders (router) and band saws. Grinders use diamond abrasive bits and flood cooling. Glass bandsaws same deal. With those you can shape flat pieces any shape you want.

But you can also cut curved glass with traditional glass scoring? And this has been so for a long time.

I tried that a couple of times, can be done. Takes skill I don't really have.
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