ANR glass maintenance.

How fragile is ANR glass? I do not have much experience with it and I'm researching my options. Is it similar to focusing screens in its fragility? I've ruined a couple of screens in my younger years by getting a speck of dust on them and not letting it go

Dust is inevitable. How easy is it to clean the matte side of ANR glass? Thanks.

Dust can be wiped off just like with regular glass. Due to the coarse texture any fouling will of course stick slightly better, and the glass will scratch a little easier than a mirror surface. In the end it's just glass like any other, for all intents and purposes.

Thank you @koraks

I once stupidly snapped the piece of glass from a contact printing frame.
The glass was supported on a pad of several layers of cotton material when I put a bit to much pressure on when polishing it.
I now support glasses like that, especially glass slide mounts on a piece of Formica with clean tissue paper in between.

I recently got $600 worth of 3mm x 10"x10" AN glass for my Durst enlarger. Crazy how after they shipped it I was informed they could not bevel the edge. So I did it myself. The glass was just as sturdy and any other 3mm glass and the hand beveling went fine, though very time consuming (top photo).

I have also successfully cut thinner AN glass (bottom photo) but with great care as it can crack easily.

Steven Lee said:

How fragile is ANR glass? I do not have much experience with it and I'm researching my options. Is it similar to focusing screens in its fragility? I've ruined a couple of screens in my younger years by getting a speck of dust on them and not letting it go

Dust is inevitable. How easy is it to clean the matte side of ANR glass? Thanks.

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It will break if you drop it but it's far stronger quality than picture framing glass. The textured side is a very smooth fine texture (so no hard edge peaks and troughs under the microscope) so doesn't grab dirt in the same way that cheaper picture framing anti reflective glass can, and isn't to be confused with focusing screens, so the texture is easy to clean. From the experience of @ic-racer I think any piece that you order should have smooth bevelled edges although I tape around the edges anyway. Just for information I get mine (for making custom negative holders for scanning) from Knight Optical in the UK but they also have facilities in the USA and Asia. In the UK at least they sell a few off the shelf sizes of ANR glass for very reasonable prices and will custom cut any other size at a price.

@250swb thank you. The pieces have arrived and I've scanned my first batch of 4x5 sheets with them. So far the textured side has attracted more dust than the smooth side, but the blower took care of it.