Scalloping allows you to produce an unusual edge on glass by hand.

English Transcription of Video:

Today I'm going to show you how to create an old fashioned brilliantly scalloped edge on glass.

Okay? First we're going to talk about the scalloper itself. I'll show you the different parts of the tool. You can see that it's flat, so we can clamp it in a vice. It has a pegboard hook, very handy. It has a tool bit up here. Very important. That's what chips the glass. The tool bit has four points on it so that when one is dull, you take it out using these two screws to turn it over or turn it around. The other thing you need to use those for is to adjust how far the bit sticks out from the body of the tool. That's very important and we'll talk about that later. The other thing that's very important is the height screw here. You can tighten it and loosen it with these two nuts. Raise it and lower it, depending on how thick the glass that you're going to be chipping. We'll discuss that later too.

Okay, so what kind of glass can you chip? You can chip anything from eighth inch up to half inch, eighth inch. This regular window glass, you can see that you can chip it successfully, but because the glass is thin, the chips are quite small. This is a three 16th inch glass, and the chips are much larger and more dramatic. This is a quarter inch mirrored glass, and the chips are extremely dramatic. You can go up to half inch, but most people doing smaller projects find three sixteenths to quarter inch glass works better. There are four rules to success in scalloping glass. The first and most important rule is to have the edge of the glass where it breaks at perpendicular to at right angles to the face of the glass. If it flares when it breaks, you won't be able to catch it on the bit and it will not scallop.

Of course, as we all know, it frequently flares when it breaks, so you can make it vertical with a glass grinder or a diamond polishing pad, but of course, you'll end up with this frosted area on the edge of your scallops instead of the smooth area that you get where it breaks properly. This isn't fatal. It's just the result of using a grinder, and this is the rule that no one ever tells you. It's a deep, dark secret. The rule is that when the glass is resting on the height screw and caught under the bit here, before you scallop it, it needs to be at an angle to the body of the scalper, an angle of 12 to 15 degrees. You don't want it absolutely in line with the scalper, so you change this angle by raising and lowering the height. Of course, you'll notice that if you're working on an eighth inch glass, the distance is different and you're going to have to raise or lower the screw, so that depends on the thickness of the glass you're working on. You could get a protractor to work out 12 to 15 degrees, or you could go to our website, angel gilding.com and download a handy little chart for free.

Okay. The third rule for success is the amount that the bit sticks out beyond the flat body here of the tool. It wants to be about a 32nd of an inch. I don't personally enjoy doing that with a tape measure, so I use a credit card. If it sticks out about the thickness of a credit card, that's good, and then of course, tighten it down tight with the screws, the adjustment screws, if it's too shallow, the glass won't chip. If your glass isn't chipping, I'd check that adjustment. If it's too wide, if it sticks out too far, you're going to get either the glass won't chip or you'll get very irregular halos on the chips, which you don't want either. So as always, practice, practice, practice before you get to work on your masterpiece. The last final rule of success is that the glass, you have to have the glass at right angles to the tool.

This is where it's sometimes easier to have the tool and the vice rather than working on the edge of the table, but it depends on what you're doing. If the glass is at an angle, anything like this, it won't chip properly. So before every chip, take the time to check to see that you have a right angle between the tool and the face of the glass. Okay, let's get on to chipping the glass. You can of course, just space the chips by eyeballing it, but I personally prefer to mark it on a three 16th inch glass. I find that every three quarters of an inch is about good. So as you can see, I've pre-marked this glass, and now we're going to chip it with our scalper clamped in a vice. Here it goes.

The action that you need to use to tip the glass is the same action that you use when you're breaking a score in the glass. It's a single firm, but not fierce. Pull just one downward chip little practice, and you will get a hang of it with no problem at all. So that's our edge for that. I think it came out pretty nice, and of course, I have to show you what to do when you have a larger piece of glass that's too big to hold in your hand. Put it flat on the bench with the edge sticking out beyond the bench, but not really any further than you need to maneuver the tool freely. Again, you can see I've marked it in three quarter inch increments, so the action is just the same. Chipped down firmly.

Oh, that one really blew out. Don't know what happened there. I think I wasn't paying attention. Of course, you notice that the scallops are forming on the underside of the glass, so when you're chipping it, it's the backside of the glass s facing up. The other thing I'd like to point out sort of in finishing up here is that the scallops that are formed on the glass are really very smooth. This particular part is a little rough. You can clean it up with wet dry sand paper or a diamond polishing diamond pad that we have on our website, but this edge is smooth, smooth, smooth. That's what makes it brilliant and it doesn't need any further polishing.