Shaping and smoothing glass on your glass grinder allows you to create great detail within your mosaic stained glass designs. It also allows you to use larger pieces within your design and not just tons of tiny nipped pieces cut with your mosaic cutter.
The Glass Grinder and Grinding Heads
There are all different heads that you can purchase for your glass grinder. To shape thicker, heavier, textured glass, you need a coarse head. To shape more standard stained glass you need a fine to medium head. *Tip: Glass grinders and grinder heads can be purchased from a local stained glass shop or off Amazon. 
It’s easy enough to change the head out on your grinder. They provide you with an Allen wrench and you remove one and replace it with another. 
There are a variety of grinder heads that can be purchased for grinding holes in your glass etc.
Shaping Glass on Your Grinder
Before you begin shaping your pieces of stained glass on your glass grinder, you’ll want to replace you splash guard and insert a wet sponge in the area provided behind your grinding head. It’s necessary for your grinding head to remain wet while you’re shaping your pieces of glass. You’ll be marking your glass piece to fit and cutting the piece with either your mosaic cutter or scoring the piece with your glass cutter and breaking the score with your running pliers. If you’ve never cut glass before, check out my post on how to cut stained glass (insert link) here. Next, turn on your glass grinder, take the rough cut piece to the spinning grinder head and smooth the edge by pushing it against the spinning head. Once the piece is smoothed, glue it in place. Always make sure you’re wearing safety glasses when grinding your glass. Here’s an example of a piece shaped after being cut with a mosaic cutter. 
Here’s an example of a piece shaped after being scored with your glass cutter and broken out with your running pliers. This piece only needs it’s tip rounded a bit. Simply take it to your glass grinder and barely touch the tip to the grinder to round off the tip. 
By using a glass grinder to smooth and shape your pieces of stained glass, you can not only create mosaics with larger pieces that have been sculpted to fit within your design, but can achieve greater detail within your design and will create a more professional looking mosaic. Below are a few examples of stained glass mosaics created using a glass grinder. 
Danielle is the mosaic artist and teacher behind Mosaics Mostly. She has been creating mosaics for over 25 years, and has taught hundreds of people to create their very own mosaic DIY projects at home. She has been featured in multiple galleries and magazines, and has even had her own beginner mosaics book published! She loves crafts, and is always working on something new!
