Sand Carving Glass

Sandcarving: Information Basics for Stone or Glass

By Eric Robert

Sandcarving is the art of blasting abrasive media such as sand at high pressures so that it digs into material to shape an image.

The abrasive media is propelled at very high speeds by a sandblaster which uses a pressurized air from a air compressor to power it. There are quite a few sandblaster categories but the pressure pot sandblaster is required to sandcarve because it has a much higher blasting pressure. The high blasting pressure is needed to carve the objects deep enough in a timely manner.

In order to successfully create an identifiable sandcarving, you typically need to blast over the object with a stencil which displays the image you want marked. To do this you will usually need a thick rubber or vinyl sheet called a resist which has a sticky backside to it. The adhesive on the sticky backside will help hold the stencil to the object your sandcarving so abrasive doesn't get under the stencil. It basically seals up the areas that you don't want the sandblaster to hit.

Making Sandcarving Stencils

Making the stencil can be tedious but it isn't very hard unless the pattern is complex. All you would have to do is outline the pattern onto the resist sheet and cut along the edges. Then peel off the areas that you want to carve into the object. There are many other easier methods but I will talk about them another time.

There are various sizes of sandcarving resists used for creating the stencil and the depthness depends on how deep you're looking to carve or how long. In the United States vinyl sheets or sandcarving rubber is measured in "mils" which is equivalent to.001 inch. For most applications, a thickness of 10 to 30 mils will be sufficient.

Typical Objects Used

Now lets discuss the typically objects that most people sandcarve into. There are many applications to the sandcarving field. One well known industry which uses sandcarving is in the cemetery headstone business.

So different types of stone or rock are one of the popular objects used sandcarving but there are many others too. The other popular object used is glass.

To see some examples, visit my sandcarving page which shows two stage glass carvings and a stone carving.

If this you're interested in more information about sand carving glass or stone, please subscribe to my newsletter or check out my nationally sold information manual.

Also check out information about sandblasting glass with those samples as well.

Thanks

Eric Robert,
Owner of GlassEtchingSecrets.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_Robert

Sand Blasting photographs on glass, granite & marble


sand carving glass
sand carving glass
sand carving glass
sand carving glass