Preparing then cleaning an ultra violet light transparency, video

This is an excellent video explaining how to prepare then clean an ultra violet light transparency for sandblasting.  As you can see in the video, he is using a 3 mil resist film and develops it using a Lectra-Lite Exposure Unit.

Place the sticky side of the ultra violet light transparency on the front side of your original transparency.  That means, look at your transparency the way you want it seen when your piece is completed, that side is the front.  Place the sticky side there!

Click here to view this video!

Important sandblasting links for glass artists.

Compressors
	Northern Tools
	Harbor Freight
	Sears, Roebuck and Co.
	TP Tools
	Home Depot
	Lowes

Sandblasting Cabinets/Dust Collectors
	Northern Tools
	Harbor Freight
	TP Tools
	Glastar
	Rayzist
	Photobrasive

Pressure Pots
	Northern Tools
	Harbor Freight
	Glastar
	Rayzist
	Photobrasive

Abrasive
	Dawson MacDonald
	McMaster-Carr
	AAA Industrial Supply

Resist
	Dawson MacDonald
	Rayzist
	Photobrasive
	Etchmaster
	EtchWorld
	Sign Warehouse

Etching resist tutorial

We found this excellent tutorial, complete with pics,  for artists interested in glass etching and sandblasting.  You can buy the printable glass etching resist (plus a whole lot more), featured below,  at this link,  colebrothers.com.  A big thank you to colebrothers for this really nice tutorial.


Prepare your image file for printing.  In paint shop choose file,page setup and select your printing options. For this image I selected "fit to page"

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Load the resist into your printer.  For most printers you will load it face down.

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Print the image using the lightest ink setting available.  Allow the ink to dry for a few minutes.  Do not touch the image!  The matte finish on the vinyl allows it to hold ink but without a clear coat it will smudge.

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Apply a heavy clear coat to the image.  Let it dry for at least 10 minutes.

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Once the clear coat is dry the image should not smudge unless you really bear down on it.

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Attach the resist with the backing still on to the glass you are going to etch.   In this example I used masking tape as a hinge.

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Lift the resist with the backing still on and beginning at the tape peel back the wax coated backing from the adhesive vinyl.

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Lower the resist towards the glass and beginning at the top by the tape smooth it onto the glass.  You can use a towel as a squeegee.  Just roll it up and as you peel the backing off run it down the vinyl so that it sticks firmly to the glass.  If you mess up you can always peel the vinyl away from the glass and start again.  This step is not difficult.

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Using an exacto knife lightly cut around the image.  You don't need to bear down hard.  Go all the way around.

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Starting at one edge pull the cut vinyl away from the glass.  Use your fingernail or the exacto knife to get it started.  The vinyl should peel away easily along the scored line.

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Once the piece is removed you will need to take a cloth and press down the area around where the image used to be so it is firmly attached to the glass.  Now you are ready to apply your etching cream or if you wish lightly sandblast.  If you sandblast make sure you protect the area on the outside of the resist. The same applies for using etching cream.

Another sandblasting tutorial

	Sandblasting stained glass requires as much pre-planning as any other stained glass project. Select your glass and your pattern before starting. Sand carving glass is a great decorative method when you need more detail than is easy in conventional stained glass. Sign lettering is a good example.
	We prefer actual sand blasting, the chemical acid method is just too thin, it disappears in a humid environment. But actual sand blasting deep carves the glass, giving it deep texture as well as decoration. The first step, once your glass and pattern have been selected, is to cut a piece of resist rubber to the size of the glass.
	Peel the sticky back off of the resist.
	And set the glass on it. Make sure it's very clean before sticking it down. The rubber resist is thick so that it can withstand a lot of abrasion from the sand. And because it's rubbery, the sand bounces off of it. It's very similar to the resist they use when carving monuments and headstones.
	The back of the glass needs to be protected from stray flying sand while being blasted. Cut a piece of contact paper that is big enough to cover every exposed part.
	Then fold it over to cover the exposed glass. Notice that we lay the sticky sheet down on the table and then lay the glass over it, this let's us avoid wrinkles. You'll just have to use care, because static electricity will sometimes attract the sheet up from the table and then things really get misaligned.
	Next cut the pattern so it will fit on the glass.
	Lay down some scrap paper onto your work bench and lay the pattern down, upside down. Then spray adhesive on the pattern.
	Finally, place the pattern on the resist. You only get one shot, so use care to center things up before contact is made.
	Next, cut out the entire design. The whole pattern needs to be cut out because the lines will all get blasted away when sandblasting. (We find that a new knife blade is a good idea whenever we cut out a pattern. For some reason, if one has been used and left to sit out overnight, it will be dull the next day.) After it's cut, you can peel off the places to be blasted. Then burnish the resist down, using the back of your knife or a fid, so it won't lift up when sandblasting.
	Here's the design after being blasted. Only one blast was needed on this piece.
	Once the piece has been blasted, we're ready to peel off the resist.
	And here's the finished piece, it just needs to be cleaned and have a metal border put on it.
The finished piece is part of Jeanne's Mandala series which will go in a book of patterns. It's called, "Labyrinth," and you can see how the lines form a labyrinth. It's different from a maze which would only have one path to get through it, whereas, a labyrinth can have several openings. Much easier to walk through! We found another good tutorial for sandblasting glass, this one was found here at Better Stained Glass.com

Mirror sandblasting notes

We discovered this great information one day when we were looking up sandblasting information on cuttingedgesandcarving.com and just had to share it with our readers.  This posting was made by Kerri, from Mayflower, AR, unfortunately that was all of the information we could find.    


If you are etching the back of a mirror you must also protect the front of the mirror.  You can use a clear or light colored tape or shelving paper while working on it, since there is nothing more frustrating than finishing a piece and turning it over, just to see it has been scratched or a corner chipped.  


I etch from the back. I also use vinyl most of the time. I have used Ultra Pro Blue with success also.

I blast at 25-30 psi. It is a fascinating process to watch the silver come off! 

I leave the vinyl on then paint (you don't have too, you can take the vinyl off..but for me that just adds another step where I take the chance of breaking the piece!) . You can paint with just about any type of spay paint. I have even used brush on acrylics. If you want different colors, just use masking tape to block off the areas that you don't want painted 'X" color and spray the rest. Let dry and put a second coat on it. Use light coats other wise it takes forever to dry. When you are ready for the next color, take the masking tape off and spray the next color. Don't worry about masking the area off where "X" color is, as it the second layer of paint will not show through the first. Once you are done, spray the whole area with black paint (matte or gloss it doesn't matter). This final coat tends to give a final finish and bring out the other colors really well. I think that in the hand painted sign world this final step is called 'backing up'.  


The pic shown below is from Kerri, who posted it on the  Cutting Edge Sand Carving webpage.

  

Sandblasting resist types and sizes

One of the most important decisions to be made in glass etching is which resist to use for a specific job. What you are looking for is the least expensive resist that is adequate for the job at hand. Controlling costs is essential for making a profit, but you can go overboard.

In your zeal to keep costs low, if you use a resist that is too thin, you run the risk of ruining the project if the resist blasts off before the project is finished. This means you will have to start over after you put in all the time necessary to transfer the design to the resist and cut the design out for blasting. The wasted time will cost you much more than better resist would have in the first place.

If you always go for overkill and use only the heaviest resists available, you will not only be wasting money but it will be much harder to get the special effects you want. Since the heavier resists are thicker it is difficult cutting and blasting in fine detail. It is also more difficult to achieve subtle changes in depth when carving in small areas or subtle changes in gray scale when shading.

Consequently, it is best for the quality of your etching as well as the quantity on your bottom line to use the proper resist for the job. Know which resists are available and how to use each one of them to best advantage.

Resist Selection Table
Resist Type	Thickness	Uses	Characteristics
Clear Vinyl	4 mil	Shading to surface Etching	Adequate only for light Blasting, somewhat difficult to remove from large areas of glass without tearing.
Clear Vinyl	8 mil	Shading, surface etching, light carving	Good margin of safety for all types of blasting through light carving; does not tear when removed from large pieces of glass.
Clear Vinyl	11 mil	Light to medium heavy carving	Somewhat difficult to cut because of thickness, good for correcting mistakes in carved areas.
Opaque Vinyl	4 mil white	Shading to surface etching	Adequate for light blasting on smaller pieces. Difficult to remove from larger pieces without tearing out in strips.
Opaque Vinyl	6-8 mil white	Shading to light carving.	Inexpensive multi-purpose resist, easy to remove from glass in large or small areas.
Opaque Vinyl	10-15 mil white or black	Medium carving.	Thick, hard, difficult to cut. Good for medium carving.
Rubber	11 mil green	Surface etching to medium carving.	Very easy to cut, especially fine detail; very tough for its thickness. Can be stretched around curved objects.
Rubber	18 mil tan	Light to heavy carving.	Very easy to cut, good for fine detail; best overall for general carving. Can be used on metal or stone. Good on curved objects.
Rubber	30 mil tan	Medium to heavy carving.	Easy to cut, moderately good for fine detail, tough; can also be used on wood, stone or metal.
Rubber	45 mil green or tan	Heavy carving.	Easy to cut, difficult for fine detail, very tough; also used for wood, metal, stone.

 

Types of Resist
Clear resists can be used for surface etching when you want to avoid the step of tracing the pattern onto the resist on the glass prior to cutting out the pattern. Just place the pattern under the glass with the resist on it and cut the pattern, looking through the resist and the glass to see the pattern underneath. Although this technique can save a lot of time, many don't like it because it is difficult to see when your cut lines are properly aligned over the pattern. The reason it is not used for shading or carving is that in both of those techniques, you peel the resist in stages an blast each stage separately. By the time you get to teh third or fourth stage, the discoloration caused by the abrasive on the resist has partially obliterated the cut lines, making it very difficult to see just where the pattern has been cut. When you can't see the cut lines on the pattern, it is nearly impossible to peel the resist out properly. Opaque resist is much better for stage blasting because the trace lines show up much better after the blasting has been started.

The 4-mil clear resist is used frequently to protect the back of a sheet of glass from being scratched during handling. Thicker clear resist is used in correcting mistakes by re-applying it to a blasted area. Since you can see the blasted pattern through the resist, it is easy to see where to re-cut the pattern areas to be corrected and to blast the affected area again.

Rubber resists are more resilient and easier to cut than vinyl resists. They are also much more resistant to failure from excess heat generated by the friction of blasting. These factors make them better resists overall than vinyl materials. However, the rubber resists are considerably more expensive and are not available in the thinner sizes. Therefore, vinyl resists are used much more for blasting large areas and where the etching techniques don't involve very deep blasting. Any time are etching a particularly expensive piece of glass (such as crystal or thick plate glass), always use at least the 18-mil rubber resist to guarantee that the resist won't peel up during the blasting and ruin the glass.

About Contact Paper
Many people start out etching glass using contact paper as a resist. This is a 5-mil think vinyl which is used as a shelf liner for kitchen cabinets and it works acceptably well for shading or for surface etching except for one major drawback. It uses a permanent type of adhesive which stays on the glass when the contact paper itself is removed. The longer the material is on the glass before it is removed, the worse the problem is. On small pieces of glass, it is not too difficult to clean off after etching is done. On larger pieces, the cleaning process can take as long as the actual etching process. The benefit of contact paper is that it is very cheap. You may want to try it out if you are on a limited budget and if you can complete the entire process in one day or less.

Conclusions
When you are just starting out, you may not know what type of etching you will be doing most, and you may not know which resists to stock. Four types of resist will cover almost anything that comes up.

A 50 yard roll of 6-mil white is essential because it is an all around resist that can be used for shading, surface etching and light carving. It is very inexpensive and you will probably be using more of this resist than any other. A 10 yard roll of 11-mil green rubber resist will take care of most carving in 1/4" plate glass or wherever you need especially fine detail.

You will also need a 10 yard roll of 18-mil tan rubber resist for deep carving in 1/4" glass or most carving in 3/8", 1/2" or 3/4" glass. For very deep carving in 1/2" or 3/4" glass, you can double the layer the 18-mil resist. It is a little more expensive to do that than use the 30 or 45-mil resist, but you won't need to do it very often.

The last resist you will need is the 8 mil clear, which you will use for correcting mistakes and possibly for surface etching on small projects. About 10 yards is a good starting amount.

As you do more and more etching, you will develop your own favorite resists for your particular technique and for the type of jobs you are doing. Just remember, using the right resist for the job will always save you money and time and will give you much higher quality results.

This information was compiled by Norm Dobbins who was an expert glass sandblaster and teacher.