Help me not cut my fingers off

In My Humble Opinion
1

I borrowed an inexpensive wet tile saw from my BIL. My intention is to cut pieces of Fenton glass brokenware that might be as large as 3" x 4" into smaller pieces. Because it’s brokenware, the pieces are not flat. They might be from vases, bowls, etc. so they are curved and vary in thickness, but I doubt any piece is thicker than half an inch. Most are much less than that. The resulting pieces don’t need to be precisely square or uniform. I just need smaller pieces to work with.

Anyhoo…the saw does not have a fence. (Maybe you don’t really need one to cut square tiles.) But I’m very concerned about controlling the cut without getting my fingers anywhere near the saw blade. Some of the woodworking sites I’ve looked at refer to “pushing sticks,” but I’m not clear on what these are made of and what they look like.

Can any Dopers out there give me some guidance on what tools I can make or adapt to do what I want to do and still have 10 fingers at the end of the day?

2

A diamond-grit wet saw won’t cut flesh, at least not without really trying!

3

Well, that’s very reassuring to know, at least! :slight_smile:

4

with a wet saw you need to hang on to the piece you can’t use push sticks.

i’ve cut tons of glass safely. keep your eyes on the blade. cutting glass is a slow process. you only can move glass straight into the blade.

5

The saw blade won’t cut you but the tile / glass will. Wear good gloves to protect against cuts and give better grip on the wet glass.

Let the saw do the work and don’t force the glass into the saw; try it with scrap or spare glass to get the feel for it.

6

Lapidary shops sell hard wax that is used to hold rocks when cutting. Perhaps that would work for this.