After ordering a tile saw and diamond blade ($80…twice the cost of my sphere! Guess I’ll have to re-tile the kitchen now…) I was able to cut the bottom off of the glass sphere that is going to serve as my Mysterio costume helmet. Once I got away from the hole at the bottom, it was quite thin (1/8″ thick) and relatively easy to cut with the diamond blade. As you can see in the picture above, the edge was a bit rough. While cleaning up the cut I did place two cracks in the sphere, which I have hopefully fixed with glass glue. (Update: the fix didn’t work.)

While working on the sphere, I have decided that walking around with a large sphere of glass around my neck (already cracked in places) may not be the safest activity. This means that I may have to build an inner plastic shield or gorget to protect my head & neck if the sphere should transform itself into sharp pieces of glass. Nothing like a costume that can kill you!

I also tried out the globe on my head, to test the visibility. Different parts of the sphere have different amounts of mirror coating on them, and in portions I was able to see out relatively well. (Well, it was relatively bad, but good enough for a costume.) Other parts of the sphere were mirrored enough so that I could only see a reflection of my face. Hopefully I will be able to position the sphere to take advantage of the high visibility areas. I may also be able to scrape or buff portions of the mirrored finish off to make a visible region line up with where I need it. [From the outside of the sphere, I couldn’t tell a difference in the coating, so it may not affect the visual appearance.]

The other option is a camera wired to a heads up display, but at that point I may as well go with a “headless horseman” style costume with my head below the sphere.

My next step is to purchase a set of football shoulder pads or other similar body mounting system, and figure out a good way to allow me to attach/remove the sphere and any protective system. I’m planning on reinforcing the bottom of the sphere using epoxy putty, and I will possibly add bolts or magnets to it to allow mounting.

Here is a picture of the piece I cut out of the sphere, as well as a close up of the edge after I smoothed it out with the diamond tile saw.