Corning Museum of Glass

The technique whereby a blank in the general shape of the finished object is mounted on a lathe and (in antiquity) turned with the aid of a bow or handled wheel, while a tool fed with abrasive is held against the surface in order to polish it, modify the profile, or cut it.

The process of cutting into the surface of an annealed glass object either by holding it against a rotating copper wheel fed with an abrasive or by scratching it, usually with a diamond.

The technique whereby glass is removed from the surface of an object by grinding it with rotating wheels made of stone, wood, and cork. The first stage of the process employs a stone wheel under a continuous stream of water. Later, wheels of fine-grained stone and wood, fed with various abrasives, are used to grind and polish the surface.