Creating a Ferocious Dinosaur Carving in Glass

This is a simplified instruction of carving glass, specifically a carved image of a dinosaur.
This also has a base with LED lights.
The first step is choosing your glass. I've used a 3/8" thick glass that is about 22" wide. This will be thick enough to allow a good amount of depth and texture.
Place a sandblasting specific vinyl on the glass. It's pretty thick but easy to cut. This is the resist for the abrasive that is blasted.
The design is then drawn on the vinyl, then using precision blades(Xacto type) each line is cut.
Certain sections are lifted at certain times to get the desired effects.
This is entered in the dinosaur contest....
https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Enter-the-Dinosaur-Contest/

Step 1: In the Blasting Room.

The first step is choosing your glass. I've used a 3/8" thick glass that is about 22" wide. This will be thick enough to allow a good amount of depth and texture.
Place a sandblasting specific vinyl on the glass. It's pretty thick but easy to cut. This is the resist for the abrasive that is blasted.
The design is then drawn on the vinyl, then using precision blades(Xacto type) each line is cut.
Certain sections are lifted at certain times to get the desired effects.

Step 2: How It Looks After the Carving

I'm using a room just for my sandblasting. It has a vacuum system that pulls out the dust, I also have a supplied air hood so I can breath.
Blasting this sort of imagery is pretty involved, utilizing lots of techniques, changing air pressure to achieve certain depths and looks and using a couple different types of blasting tools.

Step 3: Finished Piece

This is most of the carving stage completed. The dinosaur is pretty much done, I've carved the top of the glass and done the other deep areas. Next I'll draw out all the background on a thinner type of sandblasting vinyl and do surface etching to complete the look.

Step 4:

Ferocious! I've added all the background, you can see I carved the top edge to look like smoke.
I then made a glass base where I carved out area to recess a strip of LED lights.The power cord comes out the bottom.
The carving is then affixed to the base and it's ready for viewing!!

Oh,and if you'd like to see more check out HunterGlass.com
or my Facebook FAN page.. https://www.facebook.com/hunterglassdesign?ref=ts

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23 Comments

tipigeon

6 years ago

Hello this looks really good it made me interrested in sand blasting, i thought at first that you had done it with a dremel ^^

How much does a sand blaster cost approximately? Is it a versatile tool?

Eric Sandman

12 years ago on Introduction

Hey, I must say, your work is awesome! I have seen your stuff on Youtube as well. I have been working with glass etching quite a bit at our blog.

In fact, we have been featuring other sandcarvers such as in this stone sandcarving post. Let me know if your interested. We would enjoy having you as part of the community. And hopefully we can get some more exposure to your work- since I don't sell this type of work. Its just a fun hobby for me.

-Eric