Cutting ultra-thick glass is a brutal process. If you try to score a cold, thick plate, you’re basically asking your cutting wheel to commit suicide. It takes a beating and burns out way too fast. To stop that, we use high-penetration infrared lamps with specialized reflectors. The goal is simple: soften the glass right along the cutting path so the wheel doesn’t have to fight so hard. Here’s the thing about thick glass—standard heat just bounces off the surface. It doesn’t go deep enough. That’s why we use short-wave infrared radiation. It gets inside the material and shakes up the molecular structure. We aren’t trying to melt the glass here. We’re just lowering the viscosity. By the time the wheel hits, the glass is just a bit more “giving,” which means way less torque and a much happier cutting wheel. But a lamp by itself is kind of a waste. You’d lose half your energy to the air. That’s where the parabolic reflectors come in. They catch those infrared rays and shove them back into the glass. Without a perfectly aligned reflector, you’re just heating up the machine frame instead of the product. With it? You get a tight, focused beam of energy exactly where you need it. Of course, this much power comes with some headaches. These lamps get incredibly hot. If you just wire them up and walk away, you’ll end up warping your components. You have to get your cooling fans exactly right. Then there’s the balancing act. You have to nail the “dwell time.” Too much heat and you risk thermal shock—which is a nightmare. Too little, and you’re right back to wearing out your wheels. And honestly? The distance between the reflector and the glass is everything. A few millimeters of offset is the difference between a clean, satisfying score and a ruined, cracked plate.