Cutting glass?

[Steve Broady]

Has anyone tried to cut the glass tube in an in-line sight glass? I have a couple 2” TC sight glasses with 100 mm long tubes, and I’d like to cut the glass in half and install a plate in the middle of that. I’ve got a cheap diamond wet saw made for tile and stone work, and I was thinking of trying to use that to do the job. Has anyone else done anything similar, otherwise have any advice?

[Bushman]

I’ve used several different glass cutters on cutting wine bottles and found the process difficult. I would think your wet saw might be difficult. Experiment on different bottles first.

[Tammuz]

I would think cutting a wine bottle would be different then cutting borosilicate. They do make a gasket to go around your disc then slide it in. Material of the gasket?

[amh71]

Go with the tile saw, feed it slowly with lots of water. Gloves and safety glasses...

Wet & dry paper used wet will clean up any edges.

With soft glass you can score and snap or if odd shaped then alternate hot and cold water to encourage it to break along the score but I've not had much luck breaking boro from a score, it's too damn hard.

[shadylane]

A while back I broke a 4" glass tube and used an oscillating multi-tool to cut it.

[decoy]

make sure your cutting disc is centred and balanced, if there is any chatting, banging or vibration it will not end well.
trickle water unto the cut to stop hotspoting and eliminate glass dust.
May the force be with you...

[Steve Broady]

Replacement glass is cheap on Amazon, so what the hell. Let’s do this.

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I slowly scored all around the glass, and all was going well. So I started a second pass, and part way into it the glass snapped along the cut line. I cleaned it up on the wet saw, and all looks good. There’s one small chip out of the inside, but not enough to stop it from sealing.

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So I polished the ends on a 600 grit diamond abrasive plate, and here’s the final result. I’m sure I could do better if I did it again, but that 100% worked a treat.

[MooseMan]

Nice job!

So, what's this going to be now?
What's the plate you're putting in going to be doing, I'm intrigued!

Moose

[Yummyrum]

Brilliant steve

[shadylane]

What saw blade did you use?

[Yummyrum]

Looks like a tile cutting table saw .

[Steve Broady]

What saw blade did you use?

Just a typical diamond blade that came in the tile saw. I don’t know much about it, to be honest, and since it was a hand-me-down from my brother in law there’s not much in the way of anything on it any more. I will say that the only thing I did to the saw after cutting marble and ceramic tiles was to hose it off.

[Salt Must Flow]

Very cool Steve Broady! Love to see DIYers succeed. I bet it's possible to rent a tile saw for a couple of hours pretty cheap locally too.

[shadylane]

Excellent job cutting the glass, got any info to share on the bubble cap hiding in the pic?
It looks different than others I've seen.

[Steve Broady]

Excellent job cutting the glass, got any info to share on the bubble cap hiding in the pic?
It looks different than others I've seen.

Premium Quality And Sanitary Red Copper Or SS304 Professional Bubble Cap For Home Distillation,Reflux Column, Moonshine, ProCaps
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mKN06mt

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I will make some plates to mount them, hopefully tomorrow. My homemade plates might or might not have been a problem, but I figure this should help eliminate one variable.

[shadylane]

Thanks, so it's a pro-cap with a central downcomer. Got any pics and measurements of it taken apart?

[Copperhead road]

Nice job on cutting the glass Steve, how many sections are you doing on your Glasser?
I assume that is 4” glass tube…

[Steve Broady]

Thanks, so it's a pro-cap with a central downcomer. Got any pics and measurements of it taken apart?

I don’t, but I will.

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That’s a 2”x 100mm glass cylinder, for scale.

[Bushman]

Enjoy following this thread. Nice job cutting the glass.

[thecroweater]

Thats really cool, I assume you just slowly rotated the tube in front of the blade?

[Steve Broady]

Thanks, so it's a pro-cap with a central downcomer. Got any pics and measurements of it taken apart?

Sorry it took a while, but here you go.

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Thats really cool, I assume you just slowly rotated the tube in front of the blade?

Correct. I found that holding the glass on both side of the blade and letting it cut just a little at a time reduces the chipping on the inside and gave a better result. And then I cleaned the edges up with a dim and stone and some wet/dry sandpaper.