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Glass cutter
A glass cutter is a tool used to make a shallow score in one surface of a piece of glass (normally a flat one) that is to be broken in two pieces, for example to fit a window. The scoring makes a split in the surface of the glass which encourages the glass to break along the score. This is not to be confused with the tools used to make cut glass objects.
Regular, annealed glass can be broken apart this way but not tempered glass as the latter tends to shatter rather than breaking cleanly into two pieces.
In the Middle Ages, glass was cut with a heated and sharply pointed iron rod. The red hot point was drawn along the moistened surface of the glass causing it to snap apart. Fractures created in this way were not very accurate and the rough pieces had to be chipped or "grozed" down to more exact shapes with a hooked tool called a grozing iron.
Between the 14th and 16th centuries, starting in Italy, a diamond-tipped cutter became prevalent which allowed for more precise cutting.
In 1869, the wheel cutter was developed by Samuel Monce of Bristol, Connecticut, which remains the current standard tool for most glass cutting.
A glass cutter may use a diamond to create the split, but more commonly a small cutting wheel made of hardened steel or tungsten carbide 4–6 mm in diameter with a V-shaped profile called a "hone angle" is used. The greater the hone angle of the wheel, the sharper the angle of the V and the thicker the piece of glass it is designed to cut.
The hone angle on most hand-held glass cutters is 120° to 140°, though wheels are made as near-flat as 154° or even 160° [180° would be flat like a roller] for cutting glass as thick as 0.5 inches (13 mm). Their main drawback is that wheels with sharper hone angles will become dull more quickly than their more obtuse counterparts.
The effective cutting of glass also requires a small amount of oil (kerosene is often used) and some glass cutters contain a reservoir of this oil which both lubricates the wheel and prevents it from becoming too hot: as the wheel scores, friction between it and the glass surface briefly generates intense heat, and oil dissipates this efficiently.
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Glass cutter
A glass cutter is a tool used to make a shallow score in one surface of a piece of glass (normally a flat one) that is to be broken in two pieces, for example to fit a window. The scoring makes a split in the surface of the glass which encourages the glass to break along the score. This is not to be confused with the tools used to make cut glass objects.
Regular, annealed glass can be broken apart this way but not tempered glass as the latter tends to shatter rather than breaking cleanly into two pieces.
In the Middle Ages, glass was cut with a heated and sharply pointed iron rod. The red hot point was drawn along the moistened surface of the glass causing it to snap apart. Fractures created in this way were not very accurate and the rough pieces had to be chipped or "grozed" down to more exact shapes with a hooked tool called a grozing iron.
Between the 14th and 16th centuries, starting in Italy, a diamond-tipped cutter became prevalent which allowed for more precise cutting.
In 1869, the wheel cutter was developed by Samuel Monce of Bristol, Connecticut, which remains the current standard tool for most glass cutting.
A glass cutter may use a diamond to create the split, but more commonly a small cutting wheel made of hardened steel or tungsten carbide 4–6 mm in diameter with a V-shaped profile called a "hone angle" is used. The greater the hone angle of the wheel, the sharper the angle of the V and the thicker the piece of glass it is designed to cut.
The hone angle on most hand-held glass cutters is 120° to 140°, though wheels are made as near-flat as 154° or even 160° [180° would be flat like a roller] for cutting glass as thick as 0.5 inches (13 mm). Their main drawback is that wheels with sharper hone angles will become dull more quickly than their more obtuse counterparts.
The effective cutting of glass also requires a small amount of oil (kerosene is often used) and some glass cutters contain a reservoir of this oil which both lubricates the wheel and prevents it from becoming too hot: as the wheel scores, friction between it and the glass surface briefly generates intense heat, and oil dissipates this efficiently.