tags: glass, scissors, streaming video
Who would have thought?
It's like something Homer Simpson would try.
I can see how this could come in handy for some kind of art piece. [1:15]
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You Can Cut Glass With a Regular Old Pair of Scissors
Topic Categories: Streaming videos
Posted on: September 12, 2007 8:59 AM, by "GrrlScientist"
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Comments
For such a neat video you would think the maker would have realized you can't see the glass, 'cause it's clear and being held above water in a sink.
Posted by: disalushuned | September 12, 2007 10:32 AM
Would someone see if this can be easily replicated? (I don't have any glass around other than Pyrex and what's in my windows.)
Posted by: Drat | September 12, 2007 10:41 AM
It's interesting, but, as noted, it's hard to see what's really going on. You can, however, see lots of small waves on the water's surface while he's cutting. I would like to see how complex a shape can be cut.
Posted by: Mark P | September 12, 2007 5:28 PM
This is almost certainly an illusion. The person in the video is probably swapping pre-cut pieces when submerging them in water. You can't cut glass with scissors since when you cut something with scissors, the material on each side of the blade must move in opposite direction by the amount the blades overlap. Glass, at temperatures where water is a liquid, is not sufficiently elastic to accomodate this and will shatter. It has nothing to do with resonance.
Posted by: MattXIV | September 12, 2007 5:34 PM
total bullshit. Doesn't happen. Wanna buy a bridge?
Posted by: tom | September 12, 2007 7:00 PM
isn't someone going to try this and prove it one way or another?
(the only piece of glass i have is located in my windows or my bathroom mirror, which i would have to break out of their frames and i am sure the landlord -- the bastard -- would charge me double for it if i started chopping them up -- IF i can chop them up, that is! -- and i don't have any scissors at all).
so come on, someone, dooo eeet! and report back here.
Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | September 12, 2007 9:54 PM
Actually I think it works for the same reason glass cutters in a glass shop brush kerosene over the path to be cut. The cutting wheel starts a crack and the fluid fills it and reduces friction enabling the fracture to propagate freely in response to the pressure of the tool. It is certainly possible to do this without a cutting fluid, but in my experience the cut is far easier and likely to be clean. Glass is amorphous so has no preferred fracture direction and the cut is guided by the path of the cutting tool, or in the case of the video, by the scissors. I have to try this. Kerosene probably would be better than water because of its lower viscosity but stinks and of course has other drawbacks.
Posted by: VJB | September 12, 2007 10:36 PM
VJB - please report back! I'm sceptical, but it would b nice to be proved wrong.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | September 13, 2007 1:05 AM
This is almost certainly an illusion. The person in the video is probably swapping pre-cut pieces when submerging them in water. You can't cut glass with scissors since when you cut something with scissors, the material on each side of the blade must move in opposite direction by the amount the blades overlap. Glass, at temperatures where water is a liquid, is not sufficiently elastic to accomodate this and will shatter. It has nothing to do with resonance.
Posted by: HR Service | September 13, 2007 5:39 AM
Well, the almighty search god Google seems to think it can be done. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4523/
I did think, while watching the video that he cut those longer pieces awfully fast so, while starting the cut with scissors seems plausible, I would bet that the cut was finished by breaking along the cut line.
Posted by: katie | September 13, 2007 9:45 AM
I have heard of this before; supposedly the water dampens the vibrations that would otherwise cause shattering.
Posted by: David Harmon | September 14, 2007 6:49 PM