Posted by Mike Jackson on November 14, 2003
CarolI was searching around on abebooks.com this morning and checked for an out of print book by Bob Mitchell called "The Art of Glue-Chipped Glass Signs".
My search was Mitchell-(Author) and Glue Glass-(Title). It turned up three. I bought the $7.50 offering, but there are two more. One is $10 and the other is $12. I think that is less than they originally sold for. Anyone messing around with glue chipping should have a copy of this book.
Good luck,
Mike Jackson
Mike,
I dragged out my copy and don't see a price in it. But it's worth every bit of $12.00. I referred to it just recently for proportions of glue to water. And it was right on.
C.
Ron Berlier
Danny BaronianHey, why not use Rick's cook's approach to mixing the glue?
"About" one dixie cup of water with "About" one dixie cup of glue and there you have it.
Don't know if he ever went back and made "Technical" adjustments .... but that's the way he typically demonstrated mixing the stuff. (-:
Mike JacksonWhat is the 'best' mix?
I recently acquired Bob Mitchell's book. With the recent post I pulled it out and read through it.
Bob's mix is 1.25 oz. glue by weight to 2.5 oz. water by volume. In talking with Bill Hueg recently he said that's the mix he uses.
Going through Rick's notes, his main mix using a 3 oz Dixie cup was 1 cup glue to 1 1/2 cup of water. In comparing Rick's method to Bob's, I weighed the mix and the two were identical.
Rick would use a 1 to 2 mix for fine details, 1 to 1 for areas he had to brush it on.
What are others using?
Danny
The normal rule of thumb is two times the water to one measurement of glue per square foot of coverage (assuming you are covering a full solid foot of area) by weight. In actuality, a dixie cup (or any volume) of water is twice as heavy as a dixie cup of glue.
That is a rule of thumb to help you know about how much glue you will need. If 1/3 of your glass is covered with stencil, then you realistically need 1/3 less glue. Anyone doing chipping might want to try mixing up the one square foot mixture and then cover a one square foot piece of glass and try to determine how thick that covers the glass. From then on, to achieve a similar chip from glass to glass, you try to match the test thickness.
With all that said, it really wouldn't matter if you put in three times the water as glue. All that would do is make it flow easier, but you would need to pile it on thicker to get the same amount of GLUE on the glass. The glue doesn't start chipping the glass until ALL the water is evaporated, no matter how much you mixed in.
For the curved glass or globes, you could mix the glue thick so it could be brushed or thickly applied with little sagging. When squirting the glue through the small bottles (asphaltum method), we heat it up in a plastic bottle in the microwave. It gets more viscous when hot and thickens as it cools in the bottle.
I think the goal is to be consistent in the thickness of the glue from project to project, and once you get a chip pattern you like, keep applying the glue to that thickness.
Mike Jackson
Rick Sacks
Mike JacksonI don't remember the brand name of the sandblast resist that Richard Bustamante was telling me of that seems to have the same effect as asphaltum, but he's not using the asphaltum. The glue stops at the resist.
CarolI neglected to mention that one small Dixie cup holds 1.5 oz of glue. Likewise one small Dixie cup holds 3 oz of water. That is the standard mixture fully cover one square foot to get a "good chip", whatever that is. When we used to hand cut Anchor sandblast stencil, we would pour the glue on in one corner and drag a cardboard squeegee across to spread the glue to about the thickness of the stencil. That was always about the thickness of the test piece.
Also, you will notice the glue goes one easier and sqeegees out more smoothly in the summer than the winter. That's because the glass is warm and the glue doesn't set up quite as quickly as in the colder times of the year. We have been known to get the garage plenty warm and even warm the glass a bit with a heat gun, being careful not to get close to the glass. Using the asphaltum resist method, glass temperature hasn't been a problem at all.
Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson - Winter ChippingI think the temperature of the glue matters as well. I found that about 140° to 150° worked well. Mike, I'm surprised that you can microwave the glue. I would have thought it would make it tough and not as likely to give a nice chip. Live and learn.
C.
Carol,
Darla didn't much like me claiming it, but I dedicated one of those Tupperware plastic mixing containers with the big handle on the side and a pour spout in the front. It holds about four cups. We initially mix our glue in that container until it soaks up the glue, then heat the entire thing in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time, stirring the mush up between each blast. Eventually, it gets hot and completely mixed. From there, we simply re-heat it as we pour smaller amounts into the squirt bottles as needed. If the glue in the squirt bottles start getting too thick, we heat it up a little in the microwave.
After one job, we might still have 1/3 or more glue left in the larger container. No problem. Just let it dry out. Next time you need to chip, just add water again until it reaches your normal consistency and heat it again. We never saw any problems with the glue getting tough or unworkable.
I think it would be possible to over cook the glue by heating it to the point it would boil in a microwave, but we never had a problem with that. We often got it hot enough we needed to wrap a rag around the plastic squeeze bottle to be able to hold it comfortably. We don't own one of the Hold-Heat glue pots anymore. That was sold with the old shop.
Hope that helps!
Mike Jackson
Robare M. Novou - Winter chipping
Vance GalliherRick showed me the microwave glue trick at a meet several years ago...I use it all the time now.
I get great chipping, so much so that others in the gilding/chipping sign biz ask me how I do it?
I mix up my glue water ratio right in the squeeze bottle, and when it has reached the cooking stage, I nuke it for 10 second bursts, I do this several times until the glue is melted and liquified, and yes to much nuking can overcook the glue, crusting it up, and melting the bottle.
Now was that two minutes or two hours that I leave the bottle in the microwave....anyway,
give it a try...
RMN
hey carol........hahahaha...that's so funny that after all this time of making glue and chipping glass , we still want reference and go to bob's book for the "right" mixture.......i always add a little more water and am getting great results!!vg
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