Glass Cutting Details

 If you find yourself needing to cut glass, whether it be to replace broken panes in a window ir maybe as part of some craft activity you are interested in, you need to use a glass cutting tool.

There are a number of different types.  But perhaps the most common is the "skeleton key" looking tool found in most hardware stores.  Usually they can be picked up pretty low cost.

In this post, I'm not really discussing the actual technique of cutting glass.  What I want to touch on is maintenance of the tool.  If you read the instructions on the package,  it says to keep it oiled.  What oil?  I prefer 3 in 1 oil. It's very light, not very tacky or sticky and a small bottle goes a long way.  Plus, it has so many other uses.

But, you might ask, why exactly are we putting oil on a glass cutting tool?  Well, for one, the cutting wheel is metal and it rotates.  That alone is a case for keeping it oiled.  

Two, the tool sits in a tool box or drawer or somewhere,  on a table top, often outdoors in between active uses.  That attracts dirt and dust and other shtuff  that can dull the cutting wheel and gum up its works.  Shtuff that can stop the wheel from turning and that is the not good.  So the oil becomes part wash, part lubricant.

Three, glass cutting produces debris.  Fine glass dust particles.  This also dulls and slugs up the working of the cutting wheel.  No Bueno.  Again, part wash, part lubricant. 

Obviously,  the "cutter" isn't really "cutting" the glass.  It's a glorified etching of the glass to create a break line.  Glass is something in which, with a well established break line, kind of wants to follow that line when the glass breaks.  We are giving it a well defined line to follow.   Then we intentionally break the glass.  And if we did the line right, and the glass gods are pleased, it breaks exactly (or mostly) as we intended.

So, that cutting tool is VERY important to us so as to leave the kind of etched line that will please the glass gods.  It's important that we keep it clean and well maintained.

Some of the more professional, and much more expensive,  glass cutting tools actually have an oil reservoir to keep oil continuously flowing onto the cutting wheel.   If you are cutting glass a LOT and in intricate and multiple ways, you might consider one of these types of cutters.

But for typical window pane replacement,  a simple tool is more than good enough.   As long as you take care of it.