The process of roughing out the bevel is the first of four steps (roughing, smoothing, semi-polishing, polishing) the glass blank will go through. This is accomplished by holding the "blank" against a rotating iron wheel which has an abrasive slurry applied to it.
The abrasive, #120 silicon carbide, held in a trough in dry powder form. With water fed to this trough, the slurry created, is fed to a rotating iron wheel (roughing wheel).
This step quickly removes a large portion of glass, forming the beveled surface, leaving it with a rough texture similar to opaque sand blasted glass. The iron wheel has a slight taper and a rounded edge. All straight and outside curves are roughed out on the "top" tapered surface with inside curves roughed on outer edge using the rounded over portion.
The glass blank is now ready for the beveled surface to be further defined in the smoothing process.
Roughing Out the Glass Blank
