Are any of you guys familiar with drilling glass? Can you countersink glass? Anyone know of a vendor that does CNC cutting, drilling, and beveling of glass?

Thanks,

Kevin

I am pretty sure you would be able to countersink glass as you can drill it and bevel it no problem. It just needs to be tempered after all the work is done.

Yes you can (we've had it done). Takes a lot of coolant and typically a diamond tipped bit. Lots of parts or just a one off?

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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I've talked about this before, but now it is time to do it. I recently moved and the POS particle board desk I have didn't handle the move very well. So I shopped for a new one this weekend. I still can't find one I like.

So I started designing one again this weekend. I have never designed with glass before so I'm not sure what you can do with it. I am trying to decide how to attach it to the frame. My thought is to use a stainless steel tubular frame with flow drilled mounting holes. http://flowdrill.com/

Anybody have any better ideas for mounting the glass top? This whole desk will be a one off.

Look for a local glass mirror or shower door shop. They can probably either do the work or should know someone who can.

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Nick Hahn
Lornic Design

Specializing in pork harvesting equipment.

"The Standard Deviation of the Sampling Distribution of the Sample Mean ! " ( My wife's favorite statistics phrase! )

I have done glass before that is just set into place and there are no screws to hold it. Just put down some rubber pads on the tubing. I am unsure what your frame looks like though.

Make the glass from 1/2" glass and it will be too damn heavy to move anyways

I haven't started on the frame yet. I have been trying to get the tabletop shape the way I want it. I found glass desks this weekend, just none that I liked.

I paid attention to how the glass desks I saw fastened glass to the frame. It looked like they used a kind of press fit method you might say. There was a bored round pocket in the bottom of the glass that went about half the thickness of the glass. Then there was a cylinder piece welded on the frame that seemed to be the same size as the bore in the glass, only it had a very rough spun texture to it. Kind of like a cylindrial serrated edge if that makes sense. I'm not sure of the tolerance on something like that, and I'm not sure if it would come back apart.

The frame on what I want to do will be about 1.5" to 2" SST tubing. I'd like it just big enough so I could run a DVI cable thru it. I'd also like to have the tube frame laser cut so that I can run all cableing in the fram itself. Maybe in the glass itself I would like to have a recepticale for for a USB hub. As I get further along I'll post pictures.

I can have the frame fabricated at one of the fomer companies that I worked for. Finding someone to do the glass will be the harder part for me. I'm not sure how big of a slab of glass that a vendor can start with or what is a good thickness to work with.

I'm trying to make the desk that Steve Jobs would use

Glass? We do tons of Glass stuff! Infact, right now, I have two large sheets of 9/16" lami glass under my chair as rug protectors. Also, we have two rows of drawing tables (one is 15' long, and the other is about 20' long) that are attached to angled tubing that is bolted to the wall. The lower end of the table (42" off wall) has a continuous angle to keep the glass from sliding down. Works great.

Also, I can say, that we use tons or tempered and/or laminated glass...if you are gonna go the tempered route, make sure that you get it heat soaked, or it could have a spontaneous breakage issue, due to nickle sulfide inclusions.

You can easily get glass counter sunk (or even counter bored, if it is thick enough). Depending on what you are willing to pay, or if shipping is an issue, we use glasswerks and craftsmanfab alot.

I personally would recommend a 7/16" lami with an SGP rigid innerlayer. PVB innerlayers are not rigid, so if the glass breaks, it folds like a giant lasagna noodle. The only reason I would suggest paying the addtional $$ for lami over an 3/8" clear tempered glass is because I know alot of the tools I use have sharp edges, and will easily scratch glass. Thats my

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@BreakingChad
The Company Website

Really? I would have figured Bill Gates

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Swim - Bike - Run ...Repeat
@BreakingChad
The Company Website

I didn't think I would have to go that thick. I was hoping for about 3/16" to 1/4" with my 3/8" on the really thick side.

Thanks for the info. As I get closer to the weekend, I'll post screen shots of what I am doing. I'm building a couple of variations. Both are corner desks. The main difference is that one will have a "hutch" on it so I can put a printer or book shelf speakers above my head.

OK, I need some feet. I am thinking about some screw in self leveling style feel. I looked at McMaster, but didn't see a style that really looked suitable for furniture. You guys have a good source for these? Looking for some choices to pick from.

did you try Reid Tool?

http://www.reidsupply.com/Results.aspx?pid=1500000

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Cory
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Mechanix Design Solutions
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@mcadguy

No I had not. Thanks Cory. I've always worked with inhouse inventory so I don't get to buy things from vendors like this very often.

Here is another to add to Cory's suggestion.

If you want top notch quality try Sunnex... although the Reid stuff looks very good too.

They have STeP files of most of the common stuff.

http://www.sunnexmounts.com/

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QBZ

Also check out Misumi (mostly metric stuff)

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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