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Colorado School gets glass strength grant

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Colorado School gets glass strength grant

Colorado School gets glass strength grant

Glass is both spectacular and fascinating, but the things that make it amazing also challenge our ability to use it. It’s easy to think of glass as a solid material. You can touch it without changing it. It has a hard surface. It has most of the characteristics of a solid. Except that one thing that makes it truly solid – a crystalline molecular structure.

We don’t usually look at glass at the molecular level, but if we did, we’d see glass molecules arranged in a random pattern instead of the typical, neatly ordered structure that gives solids their strength. That molecular randomness makes glass weaker than other materials, and it makes it tough to classify glass as a solid, even though it seems… well … solid.

The Usable Glass Strength Coalition has given an $80,000 grant to the Colorado School of Mines to study glass in order to improve the industry’s understanding of the strength of glass. The CSM proposal was chosen because it advances strength research that was already performed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. The CSM researchers hope to answer questions about why glass surfaces can lose strength as they interact with their environment.

The researchers will examine flaws in glass and glass components that set or contribute to inherent weaknesses in finished glass. Understanding the mechanisms that make glass weak may help scientists develop new manufacturing methods or discover new materials that can enhance the strength of glass.

Improving the strength of glass can contribute to advances in many different fields, including science and research, manufacturing, construction, clean energy and telecommunications, among others. Today, glass is typically strengthened by heat-treatment or by coating the glass surface to make it more resistant to contact injuries.

Heat-treated glass is significantly stronger than untreated glass, but it may also suffer from manufacturing defects that are hard to detect and can result in catastrophic failures. New coatings can also strengthen and protect a glass surface, but they can be expensive to create and may not protect against common accidents. Being able to strengthen glass at the molecular level may reduce the need to treat glass after manufacturing, and may produce better, more reliable results.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store

Photo Credit: Steven Duong, via Flickr.com

Iconic Glass Structures – One Vanderbilt

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Iconic Glass Structures – One Vanderbilt

Iconic Glass Structures – One Vanderbilt

Usually, we take some time each week to look at an iconic glass structure. This week’s entry is a little different because it’s the first “iconic” glass building that hasn’t actually been built yet! The fact that One Vanderbilt isn’t lighting up the skyline yet doesn’t stop us from admiring the plan for this 63-story tower.

One Vanderbilt will reside in East Midtown Manhattan, right next door to the Grand Central Terminal. It was designed by Kohn, Pedersen Fox Associates for SL Green Realty Corp. The finished height of the tower will be 1,401 feet, which makes it slightly shorter than the 1,454-foot Empire State Building and about 350 feet taller than the Chrysler Building.

Construction on the glass tower is expected to completed by 2021, but the project has had a slow start. It was held up for more than a year by a lawsuit that claimed the One Vanderbilt tower infringed upon the air rights of the Grand Central Terminal. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and the settlement cleared the way for construction on the tower to begin.

The lawsuit wasn’t the only challenge for the building. The City Council needed to approve a five-block rezoning for the tower and other proposed construction projects. Both the designers and city officials hope the tower and the other planned projects will inject new life into the area’s aging office district.

When it is complete, the new glass tower will be the home of anchor tenant TD Bank, and will feature nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in transit improvements as well as a pedestrian plaza. The tower will cost an estimated $3B. When completed, the glass and steel structure, comprised of four distinct, interlocking sections, will offer 1.75 million square feet of occupiable office space.

One Vanderbilt tower will come to a point, similar to the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. It will have direct connections to the city’s subway system, and will be designed to give street level pedestrians a complete view of the historic Grand Central Terminal building’s façade. The view of the Grand Central Terminal has been obscured for years by other construction around the building, which was demolished to make room for One Vanderbilt Tower.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store

Photo Credit: KPF

Glass Toaster Is More Than Just A Pretty Face

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Glass Toaster Is More Than Just A Pretty Face

Glass Toaster Is More Than Just A Pretty Face

No one likes the idea of getting old, and as it turns out, small things can make a home dangerous for people as they age. One issue that arises more often for older folks is burned toast. On the surface, burned toast sounds more like a nuisance than a problem, but burned toast can lead to other, more serious things – like kitchen fires and questions about whether older adults are able to maintain their own homes. Enter the glass toaster.

According to elder care providers, small changes – like the addition of a glass toaster – can make a big difference for older adults who are trying to “age in place.” Glass toasters allow the user to view the bread as it toasts, and provide a visual reminder to the user that the toaster is in use. Glass toasters tend to virtually eliminate burned toast- and the smoke alarm response that may accompany it.

Several manufacturers make glass-sided toasters, and they’ve been on the market since about 2010. While most are designed with style in mind, their practicality is undeniable, especially for older users.

Using glass in the kitchen offers a number of advantages for an “aging-in-place” strategy. Glass countertops and backsplashes are durable and easy to care for. Using a coating like Glassprimer™ glass paint, glass can be backpainted and applied directly to kitchen walls using neutral cure silicone caulk.

If you prefer a lighter weight material, Glassprimer™ glass paint can be applied to Plexiglas™, a lightweight alternative to glass. Plexiglas™ can be used to replace or liven up cabinet fronts and drawer fronts. It’s not recommended for use close to the stove, but Plexiglas™ is easy to install and remove, and it can be cleaned easily with ordinary household cleaners.

If you’d like more information about using glass in the kitchen, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Day Donaldson, via Flickr.com

Glass Plate Negatives Discovered in Peoria

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Glass Plate Negatives Discovered in Peoria

Glass Plate Negatives Discovered in Peoria

Photography has changed quite a bit since its invention. While most images created today are stored digitally, early photographs were developed on glass plates. Glass is an incredibly durable material, but only a small number of glass plate negatives survive.

That’s part of what makes a discovery in Peoria so interesting. Workers from a salvage company that was removing architectural materials from an abandoned home in that city discovered a trove of glass plate negatives. The home was scheduled for demolition, and was in poor condition. The roof had failed on the home, leaving it filled with water and mold.

Among the abandoned property was a collection of more than 200 glass negatives that had somehow escaped the rain. The negatives were made between the late 1800’s and the 1930’s, in and around Peoria. Some of the negatives featured the home being demolished. Others included portraits, street scenes, vacation photographs and early Peoria landmarks.

Glass plate negatives are exceptionally fragile, and must be stored carefully to preserve the negative and to avoid damaging the emulsion. The Peoria negatives were removed from the home, and were purchased by a local collector. Some of the images were in poor condition and some of the glass plates were broken. The collector was able to restore the images and scanned them to preserve them.

Because of their fragility, it is unusual to find more than a few glass plate negatives at one time. Some libraries and newspapers maintain archival collections of glass plate negatives because newspapers commonly used glass plate photography into the mid-1930s.

A few specialty photographers still use glass plates because they provide significant tone and detail. The initial wet plate technique required the use of a substance called collodion, which was flammable. A wet-plate glass negative also had to be prepared immediately before the image was made, and required a five-minute exposure. The image also needed to be developed before the collodion dried. That limited the use of wet plate negatives to still images and portraits.

A refined, dry plate technique allowed photographers to prepare their negatives ahead of time, and process the negative when convenient. It also shortened the required exposure time.
Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator resolves many of the problems associated with printing on glass today. Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator prepares the glass surface in advance of UV-inkjet printing. The product allows UV inks to bond to glass, eliminating the need for heat curing, and enabling full-color, photorealistic printing on glass.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, or Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: James Morley, via Flickr.com

Portland Glass Factory Improves Air Quality

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Portland Glass Factory Improves Air Quality

Portland Glass Factory Improves Air Quality

The Portland glass factory that has been at the center of an environmental debate has reduced its heavy metals emissions by 98% compared to this time last year. According to the Oregon Health Authority, the filtration system put in place by Bullseye Glass is working well, and they’ve removed two of the four monitoring systems they installed following the revelation that the glass factory was emitting high concentrations of toxic heavy metals.

Bullseye Glass has installed 12 filters and will install an additional six in the coming months. The filters capture emissions of heavy metals like lead, cadmium, chromium and arsenic, which had been released untreated into the air around the factory.

Oregon state environmental officials first became aware of the toxic emissions when they sampled mosses from trees growing near the factory. The discovery, which was repeated around other local glass factories, touched off a national debate about the safety of small glass factories.

Oregon’s findings also spurred the US Environmental Protection Agency to begin monitoring air quality around other glass furnaces nationwide. Small furnaces have been exempt from filtration requirements that are applied to larger producers. The discovery of high concentrations of toxic metals has resulted in much stricter filtration requirements.

The debate has also produced casualties. Uroboros Glass, another local Portland glass manufacturer, announced last month that it would permanently close its doors because it could not afford to install the required filtration systems.

Bullseye is also working to tweak its filtration system to capture selenium emissions, which tests have shown are still elevated around the factory. Selenium is necessary for good health and occurs naturally in the ground. It does not pose the same dangers that the factory’s other emissions, but regulators want to see selenium levels around the factory reduced. Selenium is safe in small amounts, but excess selenium intake can result in selenium toxicity, the symptoms of which can persist for months.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store.

Photo Credit: America’s Power, via Flickr.com

Glass Adds Style to Home

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Glass Adds Style to Home

Glass Adds Style to Home

If you’re intent on adding a modern touch to your home, there’s no better material to work with than glass. It delivers a minimalist touch while retaining its oh-so-practical nature. Glass is insanely versatile, and it’s rarely impractical in the modern space.

Glass works so well precisely because it’s so minimal. There’s just something irresistible about being able to see through a space. Glass allows natural light to travel, so it’s definitely high on the list of materials for small spaces, and spaces that have limited access to natural lighting.

Glass comes in a variety of thicknesses, which means it can be used for more than just windows. Glass walls, staircases, floors and countertops can all find a place in the modern home.

If you want to go glass on a staircase, you’ll need to consult with architects, fabricators and contractors that have specific experience with creating glass staircases. While they seem light and airy, there’s a bevy of local code requirements for staircases (made from any material), and you’ll need to plan accordingly for railings and other required safety measures.

Glass countertops are all the rage, and can be made in a number of ways. Thick glass can be used as a counter surface. The advantage of going with straight glass is that you can light it and paint it to your liking. Glass can also be bound with epoxy or cement to make a composite countertop. Composites are strong and can add a delightful visual component to your counters.

You can also use glass as a backsplash or wall covering. Glass and glass tiles are extremely popular right now, and can give your kitchen or bathroom a unique appearance. When used as a wall covering, glass is relatively easy to work with, and can be decorated easily.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store

Photo Credit: , via Flickr.com

Miro’s Only Glass Mural Restored

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Miro's Only Glass Mural Restored

Miro’s Only Glass Mural Restored

Spanish artist Joan Miro was most well known for his murals, sculptures and ceramics. Despite his facility with both painting and ceramics, he didn’t combine the two materials, except in one place: Wichita State University. Miro’s only glass and marble mural resides at the Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art.

Miro painted the mural on canvas and turned it over to artisans who used the canvas as a guide to create the finished glass and marble work.

Unlike most museum pieces, the mural isn’t inside the building. It sits on the museum’s south exterior wall. In 2011, the museum undertook a massive restoration of the mural, removing it from the wall to rebuild it. Curators estimate that the mural shed about 400 small glass tiles each year. The original mural glass was created by Ateliers Loire in France.

When it was constructed, the mural was divided into 80 separate panels. It was removed in exactly the way it was constructed, and rebuilt in pieces. Conservators cut thousands of new glass tiles, designed to match the original French tiles. The panels were treated with a new epoxy that allows the mural to flex. This should allow the glass tesserae to adhere to the mural better, and withstand weather and seasonal temperature changes.

After five years of restoration, the mural was returned to its place outside of the museum last month, and is the subject of a celebratory exhibition of Miro’s works in all media.

The use of glass tiles isn’t just being seen in this mural. Many interior designers are turning to glass, glass tile and glass composites to create both interior and exterior designs. The versatility and durability of glass is at the heart of its popularity in design.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store

Photo Credit: Brent Danley, via Flickr.com

Secret of metallic glasses revealed

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Secret of metallic glasses revealed

Secret of metallic glasses revealed

Researchers at the University of Bristol say they have confirmed a long-standing theory about how metallic glasses form. Metallic glasses are prized substances because they’re harder and stronger than regular glass. They’re also much rarer than some would like, partially because we don’t have a good understanding of how metallic glasses actually form.

Since the 1950’s, a popular theory (developed by a physicist at the University of Bristol) regarding the way metallic glass forms has held among scientists. That theory says that if the metallic components organize in a pentagram shape, they can stop the crystallization of the glass particles, which is the key to metallic glass formation.

Ordinary glass naturally has faults between grains, which permits microfractures and makes it inherently weak. Metallic glass has no naturally occurring faults between grains, which makes it inherently strong. While that sounds good, the theory been impossible to confirm because scientists haven’t been able to prove without a doubt that the prevention of crystallization yields metallic glass formation.

Now, researchers have been able to use a computer simulation to reveal the mechanism by which the 5-sided metallic formation inhibits crystal formation. By changing the energy demands made on microcrystals at the surface, the rate of crystallization is slowed, allowing the metallic components to form a strong, 5-sided structure that allows glass to take on the strength and hardness characteristics of metal.

The confirmation of the theory about how metallic glass forms opens up new opportunities to make new metallic glass mixtures with potentially novel characteristics. It also points to the versatility and the growing importance of glass in a variety of applications.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store.

Photo Credit: Chris Dlugosz, via Flickr.com

Iconic Glass Structures – Lipstick Building

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Iconic Glass Structures – Lipstick Building

Iconic Glass Structures – Lipstick Building

New York City is known for its skyscrapers, but one of its most iconic buildings really isn’t that tall. Standing in at a relatively modest 34 floors is Manhattan’s 53rd at Third Building, known more informally as the Lipstick Building. Located at 885 3rd Avenue, the building is a steel, granite and glass structure that was completed in 1986.

Designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the building earned its nickname based on its stacked, rounded shape and red color, which are reminiscent of a tube of lipstick. The building’s unusual rounded shape takes up less space than a traditional square footprint. Additionally, the rounded base, along with support columns, provide additional pedestrian space in a tightly packed urban landscape.

The building is “stacked” in four sections to allow sunlight to penetrate to the lower floors. Unlike contemporary buildings, that are made predominantly from steel and glass, the building features ribbon windows and bright red, enamelized steel that coils around the building.

One of the building’s most famous tenants was none other than Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, which occupied floors 17, 18 and 19. Although the firm leased three floors, Madoff’s $65 million fraudulent Ponzi scheme was run exclusively from the 17th floor – a space that was occupied by about two dozen of Madoff’s closest employees.

The building’s designers, John Burgee and Philip Johnson occupied the building for about five years, beginning in 1986. Their partnership split apart in 1991, and Johnson elected to occupy a different space in the building. The building has changed ownership a number of times since it opened. In 2010, the building was foreclosed on by the Royal Bank of Canada after the owner at the time – Metropolitan 885 LLC – defaulted on a $210 million loan.

Earlier this year, the ground underneath the building was sold for nearly a half-billion dollars. While this arrangement sounds like a little bit of real estate intrigue, the building’s operator had an option to buy the land under the building at certain prescribed points in the lease. The building operator still maintains the option to buy the land and can exercise it once every 10 years, beginning in 2020, the owner of the land has changed. If the operator does not elect to buy the land, the land owner can renegotiate the lease rates for the building.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specialized glass coating that bonds permanently to glass surfaces. GlassPrimer also makes a glass surface molecular activator that is designed to work with UV-inkjet glass printing processes. For more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store.

Photo Credit: Demitri Parides, via Flickr.com

Thin film eliminates condensation on glass

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Thin film eliminates condensation on glass

Thin film eliminates condensation on glass

Condensation – that thin film of water that collects on glass – causes more problems than one might think of. Condensation occurs when warmer, humid air comes in contact with a cold surface. Water in the air condenses and collects on the cold surface, causing the cold surface to “fog.” If the cold surface is a window, the window is obscured.

You can see condensation at work in the supermarket when you open the door of a refrigerated case. Warm air from outside the case rushes in and quickly fogs the glass, making it difficult to see inside the case once you close the door. Refrigerated cases have built in heaters that evaporate condensation off of the interior glass surface. Having a heater inside a refrigerator is a little counterintuitive. It’s also expensive.

By itself, refrigeration is expensive. Currently, the typical household refrigerator consumes more energy over the course of a year than any other electrical appliance. People spend more on refrigeration than they spend on heat! Commercial refrigerators are even more expensive, so adding heat to the refrigerator in order to combat condensation simply increases the cost of refrigeration.

By eliminating condensation inside the refrigerator quickly and without added heat, retailers can reduce the cost of refrigeration. What’s the secret? A super-hydrophobic thin-film acetate coating applied to the interior glass surface repels water so it drains away immediately, without the need for heaters inside the refrigerator case.

According to the manufacturer, retailers could save about $85 per year per standard refrigerator case. At that level, the film could pay for itself through reduced energy consumption in less than 2.5 years.

Coatings can allow glass to do some pretty amazing things! For example, Glassprimer™ glass paint is a specially engineered glass coating that creates a permanent bond with glass surfaces. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be tinted to match any major paint manufacturer’s paint palette. That means you can easily incorporate painted glass into any decorating scheme. Whether your project is completely interior, completely exterior or a bit of both, Glassprimer™ glass paint offers exceptional durability, UV resistance and versatility.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Martin and Jessica O’Brien, via Flickr.com