Glass cutter
A glass cutter is a tool for cutting glass.
The term glass cutter is misleading, because a glass cutter does not cut the glass in the proper sense. The resulting by scoring fissure leads to a stress concentration ( notch effect ) and along the glass breaks in a controlled pressure, train or bending stress.
In addition to the hand-held glass cutters described in this article, there are also machine- guided glass cutter for industrial use.
Classification
Glass cutters are available in very different styles and price ranges and for different applications, as well as sections for different glass thicknesses.
- Glass cutter with one or more cutting wheel made of special hardened steel or tungsten carbide
- Glass cutter with a specially polished diamonds
Construction
Hand-held glass cutter consist of the following parts
Cutting tool
Diamond or steel wheel. The thicker the glass to be cut, the greater must be the cutting angle. The cutting angle is the angle at which converge the flanks of the cutting wheel.
Cutting head
This keeps the cutting tool and is used for transmitting power between handle and cutting tool. The cutting head is either permanently connected to the handle or mounted rotatably. In oil -run glass cutters he directs the cutting oil from the handle via a wick to the wheel.
Handle
Different types of handles allow for different grips in guiding the glass cutter, such as pencil grip, grip between the index and middle finger or thumb grip. In oil glass cutters out of the handle also serves for receiving the cutting oil.
Application
The glass cutting itself involves several steps.
- Glass cutter draw: This is the most common technique. Suitable for cutting ruler, while the head of the cutter is drawn to a ruler or angle along to get a straight cut, or for hands-free interface to perform auxiliary sections and cut along to the recorded lines or templates.
- Glass cutter slide: with special glass cutters / grips, this technique is recommended for freehand cutting, because it gives a view of the cutting head and the line ahead of him.
For Physics
The physico- chemical processes that occur during glass cutting, are not yet fully understood, and there are different theories about it.
Crucial to the glass breakage is caused by the cutting tool along guiding the notch effect. The influence of the voltage curve in the glass can be visualized by methods of photoelasticity. Immaterial for the crushing process is the weakening of the glass by the heat generated by the tailor fissure. When producing a similarly deep crack by grinding the glass, the glass does not break as desired at the crack along.
Over time, tensions build off again, the cut is "cold." He breaks no longer increasingly difficult and after days or weeks.
The molecules of the cutting fluid accumulate at the crack tip and lower the energy to break up the molecules of the glass. To this end, a cutting fluid must meet several requirements
- They should be thin liquid
- The molecules should have a very high binding energy
- Their molecules should be as small as possible
From its physicochemical properties forth water would be a good cutting fluid. However, because it can promote the corrosion of metal parts of a glass cutter, can be found in practical use synthetic cutting oils.