If it's this, it was already maxed out. I don't know where else to look for increasing the ray limit.
http://i.imgur.com/78tsXLi.png

These are the raw renders for specular and diffuse with Blinn.
http://simplymaya.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=56739&stc=1&d=1434982326...

I haven't used the mia_material_x_passes yet, I'll do that tomorrow along with what Gen suggested about extruding the glass.

If you mean use the alpha of the diffuse as a mask, I'd still end up...

I've tried compositing the specular's separate render (while I was using Blinn) but what I get is a black background with it, and if I overlay that on the hourglass that has transparent background...

I'm using 2012, I don't think my PC can handle Maya 2014.

In this hourglass' case I just needed a certain type of refraction so it would not morph the sand inside. If I try 1.5 the result is pretty weird. I mean look at how the refraction is on these real...

The alpha channel looks like this, so it does not cover the areas I'd like covered. Must be because my glass is made of a blinn with low transparency. The specular does not show where transparency is...

Thank you. I have attached it to this post.

Yeah but how would I composite the specular? (what I meant by this is - I have tried all possible operations when overlaying the two files, I only end up with a faint rectangular background, which...

In the alpha channel I only see the hourglass' shape as white but the specular is in no way displayed as white in the alpha mode. When I've made a render pass export, this is what I ended up with. As...