A Cheaper Glass Cutting Surface

A Cheaper Glass Cutting Surface.....

 

One of the many problems you come across when cutting glass is what surface to use. Im sure like many of you we started out by using a large carpet tile to cut our glass on. The problem was this if your cutting a lot of glass you soon find that the carpet tile would get lots of shards of glass on ( memories of little shards in the end of your fingers , not fun by any means )

Looking around there are grids you can purchase, an example of this would be the Morton Mini Surface ( there are others this is just an example ) , if you Google it you will find plenty of  places selling them, prices range around £30 – 50 depending on the size you look at ( mini or maxi surface )

For a cutting surface that’s more than im willing to pay especially when you need twice the area as in our case as there is two of us creating things out of glass. So what is the alternate ( or at least one of them ). One of my many hobbies in the past was keeping a marine tank with sea horses, as part of the tank we use something called Eggcrate. This material builds up the scenery for the coral. Its looks more or less the same as the Morton cutting surface. The only difference is that it does not have a solid back like the Morton surface ( collects the glass shards )  but in my opinion this is a bonus, the glass shards fall through the surface onto the table top away from your hands, when you are finished you pick up the surface and simply wipe the shards away into the bin. No cuts, no small shards of glass in your fingers for days, the world becomes a happier place.
 

What it looks like when it arrives at your door

It does take a little bit of work to create the surface as the way they are supplied to you they normally have a piece of plastic that goes around the outside of the grid that’s sharp or just needs tidying up. ( see below pictures for what i mean by this ) . We use the pliers and the knifes to carefully remove a block of squares around the outside of the grid and to tidy any sticking out bits .

 

 

 

To stop the surface from moving around on your table you can use Anti Non Slip Multi Purpose Mat, this is used in cars on the dashboard to stop things slipping around every where, its not very expensive £2.00 from ebay.

 

 

 

 

 I did think about gluing this to the eggcrate at one point but decided against it because the glass would get stuck and would be a pain to clean out.  Two long strips down both sides work well, but you can have them top and bottom as well. As soon as you lean on the glass to cut it the surface does not move

Make sure you have eye protection, bits of plastic fly in different directions

Things you will need to make your cutting surface:

Pliers

Knife

Scissors

Eye protection

 

Marine EggCrate  60cm by 60cm about £10 from ebay

Anti Non Slip Multi Purpose Mat Dashboard about £2.00 ebay

im in the process of making some attachments for the surface , but i will post more details about them at a different time.

i hope you find this helpful and will take away a little bit of pain from glass work 

 

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