Title DIY Glass Mousepad - ballsconsumer77 ✅

DIY Glass Mousepad Made by @ballsc0nsumer77 or ballsconsumer77 on Discord ● This is a guide on to how to make a Glass Mousepad at home, making your own glass mousepad depends on what is accessible and available to you, these 2 factors determine what you need to eventually do and how much elbow grease is needed ● First of all you’ll need a piece of glass, If you’re able to buy a premade glass piece (right size and shape, rounded/shaped corners and edges, sandblasted and tempered) you can skip Part 2 and supplies needed for that section ● If you are going the full DIY route, you’ll have to find a piece of glass that is a suitable size for you, how you get this piece of glass depends on what you have lying around or what you can get, even your pc’s side panel would work, i’ll also be covering the different methods This guide will have 4 Parts: ○ Part 1: Supplies ○ Part 2: Sanding ○ Part 3: Leveling and Polishing ○ Part 4: Finishing Touches & Notes Part 1 - Supplies Read the other sections before buying supplies. The last thing you wanna do is buy everything when you’re clueless, read the entire guide and figure out which route and what supplies are available to you Supplies: ● Loose Grit (Loose Grit is a nickname, actual materials name is Silicon Carbide and Aluminium Oxide, silicon carbide is preferred, 60 or 90 grit works) ○ Alternative: Valve Grinding Abrasive Paste (coarse type, I will refer it as Abrasive Paste)
● Cerium Oxide ● Polishing Pad (sponge pad, get the same size as your felt wheel) ● Felt Wheel (recommend 5-6”) ● Sandpaper (1000, 2000, 3000 grit, optionally you can get ones that attach to your felt wheel) ● Diamond File (optional) ● Respirator Mask (if you’re making the pad in-doors get a good quality respirator, if you’re doing it outdoors cheap masks are fine) ● Anything to put on the underside for grip (rubber feet, PlastiDip, good quality double sided tape) ● Spray Paint (not needed with PlastiDip) ● General Supplies for cleaning and drying (sponge, soap, towels) Part 2 - Sanding ● If you are able to buy a premade piece of glass sandblasted and tempered, you basically skip this part, wash the pad thoroughly and move onto the next part ● We are going to use Loose grit to sand down the surface because it’s the best material to make a uniform sanded surface alongside texture, the same process can be used with Abrasive Paste, but it is recommended to clean thoroughly after you are done sanding with it ● If your glass piece doesn’t come with rounded edges, you can round them with the sandpaper you got (1000 grit is enough), alternatively if you’re fine with investing more money you can get a decent size diamond file ● Using loose grit or abrasive paste to grind down a flat piece of glass is as simple as doing swipes up to down, left to right, here’s 2 videos for more info about loose grits ○ Which Abrasives to Use for Coldworking Glass ○ Coldworking with Loose Grit
● What you’ll need in order to use the loose grit/abrasive paste is another hard piece of glass or a glass cup/bottle, sand in a circular motion until you get an evenly matted surface ● Depending on what your goals are (controlled or speed pad) the more time you spend on grinding the faster it is, so less time grinding = controlled surface, more time = faster pad ● Depending on weather you have normal or tempered glass the time spent on grinding changes a lot, here are some recommended times: ○ Normal Glass: 10-20 mins for a control surface, 40 mins to an hour for a speed surface ○ Tempered Glass: 30 mins for a control surface, 80 mins for a speed surface ● I recommend you sand both sides of your glass piece, if you aren’t painting the back it’ll help with sensor performance, and if you are painting it it’ll be necessary for the paint to stick onto the glass Part 3 - Leveling and Polishing ● Start by using something else that’s flat for your sandpaper as a sanding block or attach it to your felt wheel, sand down the micro peaks by hand, do around 5 passes with each sandpaper grit and move up grits after doing the 5 passes, use the same technique as using loose grit, remember to wet sand, you do not want to silicosismaxxing ● Cerium Oxide - What it is, How to mix and How to use ● There is 2 ways to polish with cerium oxide; using a low rpm drill/car polisher/orbital sander or doing it by hand, using a power tool for it will be the easiest and fastest process, but the reason why i’d recommend hand polishing instead is because it’ll give a much more consistent surface and you can control the amount of polishing you want ● The amount of time you spend polishing also affects the speed of your pad, here’s a really janky diagram of it but it should give the general idea
● Depending on weather you want a control or speed surface, it takes the same principle as loose grit, the more time spent the faster, here’s the recommended times: ○ For Normal Glass: 20-30 mins for control, 1 hour for speed ○ For Tempered Glass: 30 mins to an hour for control, 1-2 hours for speed Part 4: Finishing Touches & Notes ● At this stage you’ve pretty much completed making your glass mousepad, all that’s left to do is to paint the back or PlastiDip it, and add rubber feets, and it’s complete ● As always you can experiment as much as you want, weather it be making different bases or putting artwork on it (printing out vinyl stickers to size should work fairly easy) ● I spent a decent amount of time working on this guide, experimenting and talking to others for their experience to gather that knowledge, and i’d only really ask for a follow on my twitter linked at the very beginning of this guide, hope you enjoy the mousepad you made