Aperture Drops Finishing

After the piece has cooled and been removed from its ring, you can consider how to finish the piece.  The first decision is whether to retain or remove the rim from the vessel. In some cases, the rim can be retained as an integral part of the piece and there is little work needed to finish the piece.  Possibly only tidying up the edge of the rim and cleaning the bottom.

Removing the rim

But for most aperture drops and for most people, it is desirable to remove the rim. To have successful drops without rims, you most often need to have access to cutting and polishing equipment.  There are several ways to do this. 

The method that uses least equipment is to score around the upside down drop just above the rim.  When scored, tap the rim with a soft hammer to release it.  This is not always an even break and sometimes runs into the length of the drop.

A low tech way of cutting is to put a diamond cutting blade on a Dremel-like battery powered tool and with a flow of water grind through the side of the drop.  It is best to have a small flow of water directed at the cutting area, rather than immersing the rim in a bath of water.  This helps avoid electrical shock.

The rim can be cut off in portions with a tile saw, cutting quarters, eighths, sixteenths off the rim, approaching the edge of the drop.  Those with adjustable height wet saws can cut through small portions at a time of the rim, and support both the rim and the drop, especially when nearing the completion of the cuts.

There are also specialised versions of the wet angle grinder that make cutting of the rim easy and much more certain of a good result.

Finishing

After any of these methods of removing the rim, the drop edge, and possibly bottom, needs to be ground and polished.  Fire polishing is not possible as the drop would collapse long before the rim was smooth.

Because the rim will be relatively thin, it is possible to grind and polish with hand pads.  However, it is quicker to use a flat lap or linisher with a succession of finer grits to grind and polish an edge.  HIS Glassworks has a series of videos and this one gives good information on the methods and progression of grits to get to a polished edge whether by machine or by hand.