Custom Etching Glass: Edge Lighting
Custom etching glass using our CNC laser produces a wonderful frosting effect, the thicker the glass, the better the look and yes, CNCROi.com can also produce a shattered edge as you can see at the top of this project to your specs.
The biggest advantage to laser etching glass is the precision, CNCROi.com does have an industrial sand blaster, but the laser can produce an etching without concern for over or underspray, which is when the sand goes under the masking using for producing brands onto glass using sand blasting.
The bright light you see in this custom etching glass photos is the instant vaporization of glass particles as the laser micro-shatters the glass at the upmost top surface, the laser isn’t going “through” the glass, it’s more of a highly targeted light beam at the very top of the surface rather than in or though.
Wine bottles are a great application for etching glass, and yes, CNCROi.com can perform this duty with the wine still in the glass.
The clean-up is nothing after the laser has custom etched the plate glass, there is a little glass dust on the surface but it’s easily removed, worse comes to worse, using just gravity when the glass is stood upright.
It is very hard to properly photograph this process though, there are 20 pictures of custom glass etching in this blog post but it took over a hundred shots, most were out of focus because glass is transparent so the camera kept focusing on the wrong thing.
CNCROi.com has etched lots of glass, when I first started this business, we did a lot of this using acrylic but over time, like many things that come with experience, I’ve migrated to edge lighting using exclusively glass, namely because it’s easy to clean!
The biggest problem with edge lighting acrylic is that it’s a soft plastic, so any scratches instantly become an area that “edge lighting happens”, with glass, this issue just doesn’t happen, but it is more fragile.
You may not have noticed but this custom glass etching was reversed, meaning the etching happens on the backside, this makes clean-up by the customer EASY as the entire surface is flush, if we did it the other way, the micro shattered glass would cause issues due to it’s roughness.
The texture of the frosted custom laser etched glass is like a fine grit sand paper.
When it comes to your design options, literally any type of vector or font will work, there are limitations but generally, they are in the customer coming-up with a neat design rather than a hardware issue for CNCROi.com.
CNCROi.com isn’t limited to just FLAT glass stock by the way, we also have a rotary system so we can do wine bottles and a whole variety of shapes and sizes of glassware.
The other advantage of glass is that each is done one at a time, so you aren’t stuck with the same design parameters across a whole production cycle of bottles.
Laser etching glass isn’t very deep either, for depth, sand blasting wins in the cost effectiveness column, but what you lose in depth, you gain in resolution, so the process is more defined by your application rather than CNCROi.com‘s capabilities.
When it comes to laser etching glass, the frosty is always the same effect, if you want a fill that’s different, it needs to come from your design file rather than the etching process involved.
Glass is available in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors and thicknesses, so you aren’t limited to any specific type of glass, but a good thickness does produce better results than paper thin glass.
The reason why CNCROi.com requires vector images, black and white, for glass etching is because it produces a sharp result, if we used a bitmap or jpg, the jaggedness would appear in the etching as it’s present in the graphic file.
I’ve been doing custom CNC work for many years now but it’s still great fun seeing a machine do something awesome!
Some things to keep in mind when designing for branding glass, when it comes to edge or back lighting, more is less, if you got something too filled-up, then the results are a diminishing return, what makes this process look cool is clear details, not overstuffed visual eye clutter.
As our CNC laser etches across this plate glass, another consideration to have is to keep things proportional across the surface when it comes to designs, having just one area with glass etching isn’t as interesting as a panorama of stuff happening, you can mix and match elements.
CNCROi.com isn’t limited to just wine bottles by the way, we can also etch beer bottles too!
Glass is glass, regardless of it’s intended application.
The rubber pads you see under the glass of this custom glass etching are just there to prevent scratches from happening, they do not interfere with the etching because they are under the glass, the etching is happening on the opposing surface.
From experience, there are no really ugly fonts when it comes to branding glass, it’s the mix of graphics and fonts that makes something nice or not, but it is hard to screw-up a design on glass because it’s still a very novel process that not many people are accustomed to.
Notice the shattering of the glass along the top of the plate glass frame in the picture below, yes, CNCROi.com can customize that for you too!
Taking a look at the glass at various angles, you can see how great this looks in any light.
The consistency of plate glass is wonderful, thinner or cheap glass doesn’t work very well as there are differences in density across the surface, more expensive plate glass has far less of these, hence a consistent etching.
Glass really shines though after you add lighting to the bottom (or any other side) edge.
This hasn’t been cleaned yet, you can see the smudge marks in the above photo but it will look awesome in the customer’s house, need custom glassware branding? Contact CNCROi.com.