Producing wonderful glass mosaic ceramic tile art is easy! Allow me demonstrate how.

 

Wheeled glass cutters are essential for creating glass mosaics. I make use of it to cut and condition vitreous a glass and stained glass. This can also be used to reduce smalti. The wheeled blades make cleaner cuts than tile nippers. The two carbide wheels (or steel, if you buy cheap cutters) are fixed in position. Instead of scoring and breaking, the wheels apply even pressure to the top and bottom edges of the glass, creating it to fracture along the line of the wheels.

 

The wheels are replaceable and eventually go dull, although not before several thousand cuts. Each steering wheel is held in place by a setscrew (usually an Allen screw). Since your cuts become significantly less clean than when the cutters were new, use an Allen wrench tool to loosen the anchoring screws, rotate each wheel about 1/8-inch, and then re-tighten the screws. By transforming the location of where each wheel touches the glass, you have, in effect, replaced the rotor blades. It'll have a long time and many cuts to use the entire circumference of the wheels, particularly if they're carbide.

 

When the wheels finally do that is become uninteresting, I would recommend buying a complete new tool. The wheels make up the almost all the tool's cost, which means you won't save much by simply buying replacement wheels. Having a brand new tool, not only are the rims sharp, however the rubber handle grips are new and clean (the rubber wears down and becomes dirty) and the spring is secured in-place. Every now and then, the springtime breaks free from my cutters. The tool still works with a free spring, but annoying to keep the handles from spreading too far separate. When that happens, the spring falls off. It can quite annoying to decline the spring, watch it bounce out of achieve, and then have to get out of my chair to retrieve it. I tried soldering it permanently in place, but it didn't work because I couldn't get the metal hot enough. Thus, until I obtain a new tool, the spring constantly falls off. Another reason to buy a new tool as opposed to just replacement rims is, if you drop the tool, it's possible to knock the rims out of alignment. Therefore , after several projects when you think the tires need replacing, I suggest buying a whole new tool.

 

When your new tool arrives, use an Allen wrench tool to tighten the anchoring screws as tight as possible. Then, use an engraver, paint, felt-tip marker (or whatever you have that makes a everlasting mark) to make a little mark mark on the side of each wheel where it details the glass when trimming (the two tick marks should be aligned reverse each other). I use an engraving tool in making the tick marks therefore i avoid have to worry about paint or ink eventually rubbing off. After a few hundred cuts, ease the screws, turn each wheel slightly, and then re tighten the screws. After several of these adjustments, the tick signifies have gone full circle suggesting that it's time to replace the tool (or just the wheels, if you prefer).

 

Don't be surprised if the wheels rotate on their own. No issue how hard I turn down on those screws, it apparently isn't restricted enough because the wheels slowly rotate by themselves from the pressure exerted during the cutting action. Right after several days and many cuts, I spot the tick marks are no extended aligned directly opposite each other, which indicates the tires have rotated slightly. Maybe I'm a weakling, but I just can't get the screws tight enough to keep them static. However , that's okay with me because, if they turn by themselves, i then don't have to by hand do it.