Yuman creates designs with sand

There's no erasing mistakes when you paint with blasts of sand, cutting your decorative way across a canvas of glass.

Thank goodness lifelong sketcher and retired fighter jet pilot Dennis Snook boasts a steady hand.

Snook uses artistic precision to create fanciful designs of etched glass, images that appear on everything from personalized champagne flutes to large and elaborate windows as wall art.

"Whatever design people want on glass, we can do it," Snook said. "Creating whatever people want is actually my favorite part."

Snook and his wife, Paula, own Snook Art Glass in rural Yuma. They started the company four years ago and have since produced a mountain of glass pieces both for local folks wanting a personal touch on glass and for companies on the national level looking to commission some unique products.

But their products aren't just pleasing to the eye. The process they use in the creation turns out to be appealing to the imagination, too.

Images appearing on the Snooks' products resemble graceful images of silvery frost, a look achieved through a less-than-delicate process of blasting high-pressure streams of air and sand at the glass. Horses and flowers are popular images, while some customers choose monograms or text on the glass.

For smaller items, the Snooks use a special etching machine with a chamber that envelops the glass piece and contains the spray of sand and glass shards as they fly during the decorating process. The user reaches into the machine with gloved hands and controls the sand spray with a hand-held hose and wand.

At its highest pressure, the sand is blown from the machine's hose at twice the pressure of the average car tire.

For large items like windows, the Snooks use a special blasting closet, which requires the user to dress from head to toe in protective gear.

For local customers, Snook Art Glass has made etched wine glasses for weddings or retirement parties, commemorative mugs and plaques, and even a coffee table or two.

On a larger scale, the company has produced big orders for glass trophies and even items as uncommon as etched crystal nail files. The latter product - produced in shipments of 2,000 - will be sold at manicure salons at airports from Montreal to Miami.

Customers from outside Yuma find Snook Art Glass through its Web site.

Snook described what it's like to fill a huge order, but keep the quality consistent.

"When I do 2,000 of something in a row, I have to limit myself, stopping when I first start feeling like I'm not caring as much. When the standards begin to slip, it's time to quit."

Prices vary wildly because there is no such thing as a standard order. Etching on champagne glasses provided by the customer costs around $35. A large window piece like the water scene pictured on Page B4 costs around $240.

"It's not really expensive, once people realize how much work goes into making just one glass," Snook said. "Heck, the etching is actually the shortest part of the process."

Preparing a piece for blasting ends up taking up quite a bit of time, as Snook must create special stencils and glue them onto each piece of glass. The light-sensitive stencils - which are often original designs by Snook - allow the sand to strike the glass in just the right places. He also has to mask the rest of the glass to protect it from the etching.

The actual etching of a champagne glass may take only 30 seconds as Snook sweeps the spray of sand back and forth across the stencil.

Snook is quick to point out that although their business can produce etched glass in large numbers, they are certainly not an assembly-line manufacturer.

"This is definitely not mass production. This process is essentially done by hand," he said, adding that pieces also have to be made one at a time. "Plus there's just so many steps involved."

Then there's the fact that Snook is a stickler for details and could never accept the potentially sloppy work of mass production. He jokes that he "even fired my wife once" because her etchings weren't coming out just right that day.

"That's the only way I can do it," he said, smiling. "I can't say, 'Well this is good enough.' I want the last piece to be as good as the first."