Saturday, September 4, 2010

Broken Follower and How to 'Fix' Chipped Glass

Of course the glass follower I use got a chip in it! (Here's a link to my ugly cheese press and my glass follower).

A few years ago someone showed me a way to smooth out a chip in a piece of glass. I've used this trick so often that I thought I would share it.

I've done this to the edge of bowls, cups, and 1/2 gallon milk jars. I don't do it on canning jars because the lid won't seal after the rim has chipped. But it makes all the other glass things safe to use. No sharp edges, no cut lips or fingers.

You can't really see the chip in the photo, but the pencil is pointing at it if you want to get an idea of where it is.
I use an emery board or fine sand paper to sand the edges of the chip! An emery board works a little better than the sand paper because it is stiffer and it doesn't tend to rip like the sand paper does.
Most of the time you can't see the chip after I've sanded it smooth. Sometimes, like on the rim of a smooth cup, you can see it, but since it is the edges aren't sharp anymore I don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt on it. My favorite 'fix' is on the 1/2 gallon glass milk jars. They aren't cheap and I hate to throw them away unless they are cracked and completely useless.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you! I came to the web looking for just this! And surprise, surprise, it is a 1/2 gallon glass milk jar that I need to smooth out :) I'm not even sure how it got chipped, I just noticed it one day. Since I keep my doggie bones in there, my hand is going in and out all day long, so I'd like to know that I'm not going to get cut at some point. Blessings!

TJ said...

So glad I could help :)