peach
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Think I can cut TLC's with a tile cutter?
I've seen the MIT videos and they scratch them with a ruler and scribe, then snap them on the bench. But that looks kind of messy to me. The lines end
up wonky, they might not snap properly (which is expensive), I'm used to snapping things like this but still think it risks wonky lines or cutting
myself and it means grubby'ing up the surfaces on the bench or gloves.
I was thinking of buying a cheap tile cutter, then gluing some tiles to the bed. I was going to use two, have a very small gap between them and use
the concaving, rounded edges along the break point to avoid scratching the plate.
Then I could get an accurate score and, I'm hoping, a clean snap.
Has anyone tried something like this or have an idea if it'll work or not? Please only reply if you're used to scratching and snapping TLCs, as I need
some first hand advice.
All the best from sunny England! [edit: aww.... it's dusk time now]
John
[Edited on 2-8-2010 by peach]
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Eclectic
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Glass plates, you mean? Scratch and snap is kinda standard, but there may be a tool/jig made for cutting window panes that would make it easier.
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peach
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Yep, glassys.
That jiggy thing is a tile cutter, used to scratch the glaze and snap it along a line. Same trick for glass. And bricks actually, with a different
tool (although, I tried that with high purity alumina / zinc oxide refractory rated for molten iron contact and it doesn't work so well).
The reason I thought of a tile cutter is that they essentially do exactly the same thing as the ruler / scribe / snap method, but the scribe is fixed
to a linear rail, so it'll produce a perfectly straight, controllable score. The way they snap tiles, by placing a little break point on the scribe
line, also tends to encourage a clean snap.
And, as I say, if I lined the support area of it with glazed, smooth tiles, I could ensure the plates where cut spotlessly clean and, I'd like to
think, dead on straight and repeatable.
I should have tried this with a bit of glass when the plumber left his cutter here.
I was going to say, I'm surprised they still do the big plates. But I guess they'd be handy for developing a ton of spots on one for direct
comparison. Perhaps it's fairer to say I'm surprised by the lack of prescored done slips. Unless the ones I'm looking at are being surplus'ed out of
service for that reason.
[Edited on 2-8-2010 by peach]
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turd
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Glass? Are you sure these aren't preparative TLC plates? The preparative ones are large for obvious reasons...
Anyway, 2nd Google hit: http://orgprepdaily.wordpress.com/2007/05/16/on-glass-tlc-pl...
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peach
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Thanks turd, these have a 250um thick layer. I think the preparative sheets are 1000um.
The link is handy, the more you know the better, but they're the same hand scratch and snap method MIT demonstrate in their video.
Hotlinking is theft... you'd think I'd just stolen the first folio of Shakespeare's work.
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unionised
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I used to use the nail file on my pen knife to cut hptlc plates.
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