I've done a ton of sandblasting over the years (just metal cleanup) and still have a few siphon guns. Remember shaking them to get things flowing, very frustrating.
I never tried glass until my wife (a fused glass fanatic) wanted me to try some stuff on various art glasses. Never did break out the siphon gun, but when I got my laser I told her the potential for using it on glass. Just "lasing" plain glass doesn't work so well, it needs something to transfer the heat and "spall" the glass for the frosted look. Black paint does the trick. I brushed on some tempura paint and ran a test pattern to find the best speed/power. This is edge lit glass:
You can see the brush strokes which don't happen with spray paint. Using white paint with titanium dioxide will fuse black into the areas where the laser hits. Kinda neat to be able to etch in either frosted, or black.
Her glass has iridescent coatings which at the right laser power will burn away these coatings. If she puts them in the kiln to "fire polish", the frosting melts back into clear and I can get some neat images.
With sandblasting, you make a mask so I tried cutting some self adhesive shelf vinyl and making my own sand blasting masks.
That worked well, but I figured lasing the glass through the paint was easier.
I then though about using the laser cut mask to remove the silver from the back of a mirror. I applied the shelf vinyl and set the laser to just barely burn away the vinyl but leave the mirror silver intact.
Applying the vinyl to the mirror allows for disconnected sections versus cutting the mask (stencil) and applying.
The mask resists a weak acid I brushed on and the acid removed the silver so I had clear areas on the mirror
Been tempted to try other stuff like your work, but of course it would need to be on a much smaller scale since I can't bring the tool to the work.
Your talent shows! Basically air brushing with sand 👍
