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Toledo glass makers concerned about closings

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Toledo glass makers concerned about closings

Toledo glass makers concerned about closings

Art glass makers in Toledo, OH worry that they’ll be negatively affected by the closing of an art glass supplier in Washington State. Spectrum, which sells glass and supplies to glassmakers nationwide, announced last month that it intended to cease operations. Spectrum became the subject of an Environmental Protection Agency probe after officials noted a spike in the amount of heavy metals around the Spectrum furnace.

Art glass makers say future is in doubt

Spectrum had been operating in compliance with EPA emissions regulations. In a written statement announcing the closure, Spectrum CEO Craig Barker said, “Spectrum Glass Company has operated well within existing environmental guidelines and has been the only stained glass manufacturer to employ baghouse technology on furnace exhaust. Still, we have already accrued extraordinary, unanticipated expenses since the start of the EPA evaluation and cannot withstand additional investments of an unknown scale for an already faltering company.”

Spectrum’s closure leaves the future uncertain for Toledo’s art glass community. Producers worry that they will no longer be able to find specific supplies, or that the cost of making glass will exceed what they can recover from sales.

The Environmental Protection Agency became especially worried about emissions of specific metals from the plant, including cadmium. Cadmium is used to create red, yellow and orange glass. Cadmium is a known carcinogen. The EPA also noted increased amounts of lead around the plant, although residents who live in the area have not shown any increase in blood-lead levels.

Bullseye, a Portland-based glass manufacturer, also ceased manufacturing the supplies to make those colors after the EPA found elevated levels of cadmium in the air around Bullseye’s furnace. The company has reduced its output to just 20% of its regular production level in an attempt to comply with EPA emissions regulations. Findings at the plants in Oregon and Washington have triggered a nationwide review of glass plant emissions.

Glassprimer™ glass paint offers an environmentally friendly, cost-effective way to apply color permanently to glass. Glassprimer™ requires no firing after application, and dries to a permanent cure in 24-72 hours.

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: Sergey Lebedev, via FreeImages.com

Bendable Gorilla Glass? Come on!

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Bendable Gorilla Glass? Come on!

Bendable Gorilla Glass? Come on!

Recently, we’ve profiled Gorilla Glass and Vibrant Gorilla Glass. Corning, the manufacturer of Gorilla Glass – which virtually owns the mobile device market – says it may be able to deliver “bendable” Gorilla Glass to the market within 2-3 years.

Flexible glass displays already possible

The company is not willing to commit to a deliver schedule, but says that it’s working on creating reliable flexible glass displays, largely for wearable mobile devices. According to the company, flexible glass isn’t the major issue; the company can already make glass that’s thin enough to flex. To make a highly flexible mobile device work, flexible electronics and flexible batteries must also be part of the package.

Last month, China-based Chongqing Graphene Tech Co., known informally as the Moxi Group (pronounced mou-shee), says it’s getting ready to introduce a flexible touchscreen phone to the marketplace. That device uses a graphene display, rather than one made of flexible glass. The company says its first market product will have a black-and-white display, but it plans to introduce a full-color display by 2018. The expected price for the first product, which will hit the domestic market in the fourth quarter, will be about $750.

According to the Moxi Group, full color displays are more challenging, in part because of their increased power requirements. Color displays require more power. In a mobile device, that translates to improved battery performance. Either a flexible battery or a smaller, more powerful battery would need to be developed to provide acceptable performance for a highly flexible color display.

Samsung and LG both have “flexible” phones, but neither of those devices can be flexed as much as the device to be marketed by Moxi. Moxi Group’s device, which is a candy-bar style phone can be looped into a closed ring. Samsung says it will bring a highly flexible phone to the market in 2017. According to the company, that product is flexible enough to be rolled up and stored in a pocket.

Flexible batteries may be available in the near future. Cooperative research teams in the US, South Korea and China say they’ve developed a highly flexible solar battery for use in wearable electronic devices. The battery, which does not need to be charged, incorporates solar cells into a flexible silicone shell with a flexible copper matrix. The silicone shell makes the battery waterproof, and developers say it can be flexed into virtually any shape.

There’s no timetable on the availability of flexible glass, but if you need inspiration for decorating with non-flexible glass, please check out the rest of the Glassprimer™ glass paint site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .
Photo Credit: Moxi Group

Fire resistant glass fraud lands two in court

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Fire resistant glass fraud lands two in court

Fire resistant glass fraud lands two in court

A Toomebridge father and son duo appeared in front of a judge last month in Northern Ireland to answer charges that they fraudulently claimed glass they’d sold was fire-resistant. Seamus and James Laverty, the latter of whom was the former safety director for Glassworks Ireland, are alleged to have supplied ordinary laminated glass to nearly 40 commercial installations, while representing that the glass was fire-resistant.

Fake fire resistant glass ended up in schools, hospitals

The Lavertys are alleged to have misrepresented the glass to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, churches, universities and businesses throughout the UK between 2010 and 2013. The case will be a complex one, because each of the allegedly fraudulent glass must be tested to determine its fire-safety potential.

Fire resistant glass is required in some commercial buildings. It can provide occupants with valuable time to escape during a fire. Fire resistant glass is most commonly used (and required) in Europe. The total market for fire resistant glass is expected to approach $6B by 2019 and has an estimated annual growth rate of more than 12.5%.

Fire resistant glass has a current market potential of about $50 million in North America, but the market is expected to grow as new building regulations come into effect. Increasingly, fire resistant glass – which had been primarily marketed for fireplaces – is being required in building stairwells, since they are the primary escape route for buildings on fire. Most fire-resistant glass is currently manufactured in Europe and shipped to North America for installation. Not surprisingly, European regulations and North American regulations on the use of fire –resistant glass differ.

Fire resistant glass is about 15 times thicker than regular glass and 5-6 times heavier. The characteristics of the finished glass require significant changes to the machinery used to manufacture it. A benefit of fire-resistant glass is that it can provide as much as 120 minutes of fire-resistance, which can provide ample time to evacuate a commercial structure.

Glassprimer™ glass paint offers a thermal resistance of about 350° F, but building fires typically generate temperatures of about 1,000° before “flashover,” and as high as 1,800° F after flashover, when a building is fully engulfed in flames.

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: Fire Door Inspection Scheme, via Flickr.com

Glass safety takes center stage

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Glass safety takes center stage

Glass safety takes center stage

Glass is a beautiful architectural and decorating surface. Because ordinary glass shatters into razor-sharp shards, glass safety is a primary concern. Some dramatic demonstrations of glass safety made the news last week, as China’s Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon bridge, perched more than 1,000 feet above the ground, is prepared for its grand opening.

Glass safety on display

Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge
Volunteers lined the 1,400 meter-long Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bottom bridge, which is nearing its Grand Opening. As the somewhat nervous spectators looked on, one of the bridge’s glass panels was smashed with a sledgehammer, mostly to no avail. The top panel of the glass was cracked, but after more than a dozen other blows rained down on the bridge’s surface, the bottom two glass layers of the bridge stayed quite intact. In addition to suffering abuse by the sledgehammer, the bridge operators drove a 15-ton truck across the span, and allowed 25 brave tourists to jump on the cracked glass panel, all with no ill results. The structure is rated to hold 800 tourists at a time. The bridge held the demonstration to prove the safety of the structure, which will open to tourists in July.

University of North Dakota Ralph Engelstad Arena
Over the summer, the University of North Dakota will enhance the safety of the glass and boards at the university’s Ralph Engelstad Arena. The arena will install new safety glass around the ice surface, and will also take steps to increase the safety of the rink’s dasher boards. The new glass panels are actually made from acrylic and will flex when a player comes in contact with them. The flex is important in preventing serious physical injuries to players. In addition to adding flexible glass, the arena will add a new dasher board system, which will also flex when players make contact with it. A soft, rubberized cap on top of the dashers will also reduce the possibility of serious injury resulting from player contact. More than 90% of NHL arenas employ the same glass safety systems.

Liverpool University
Romag, a UK glass manufacturer has completed the installation of 3 interior pedestrian bridges for Liverpool University’s Materials Innovation Factory, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2016. Romag is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of laminated architectural glass, and delivered the walkways fully glazed, which reduced the complexity of the installation process.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is a great addition to interior glass designs, and works on all types of glass, as well as acrylic and Plexiglas;™. If you’re looking for inspiration for a glass project, please view the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Sarah Williams, via FreeImages.com

Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

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Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

Iconic Glass Structures – Farnsworth House

Periodically, we take a look at iconic glass structures. Today, we look at the Farnsworth House in Plano, IL. The Farnsworth House was designed in 1945 by Mies van der Rohe, but the house was not actually constructed until 1951. Between its design and construction, a model of the house was used as an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Glass and steel characteristic of modernism

The Farnsworth House was commissioned by Dr. Edith Farnsworth, for whom the house is named. The house, which appears to float on a was used as a private residence, until it was purchased in 2003 jointly by two historic preservation groups. The house currently operates as a museum.

Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect and is considered one of the founders of the modern architecture movement. He strove to create buildings that minimized the structural framework in order to improve the transition between the structure and its surroundings. Mies van der Rohe’s designs often incorporated glass and steel. The Farnsworth House has no interior walls, but it does have structures in the space that imply distinct areas. It also has full length draperies that provide privacy when desired.

The modernist movement followed the conclusion of World War I. Following the war, traditional classical architecture in Europe was unpopular because many people saw it as a reflection of Europe’s faltering class-based societies. Designers were looking for a style that complemented the industrial character of 20th century life, and the modernist style took root.

By the late 1930’s, Mies van der Rohe, who was the last director of the Bauhaus, closed it on the recommendation of the school’s faculty. The Nazis, who had risen to power in Germany, found that the Bauhaus was not sufficiently “German” and made it very difficult for the school to continue. Mies van der Rohe migrated to the United States and took commissions in the western United States and Chicago, where he was the head of the School of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Many of Mies van der Rohe’s works incorporate glass liberally, including Crown Hall on the IIT campus; IBM Plaza in Chicago; 860-880 Lakeshore Drive in Chicago; the Chicago Federal Center; the Seagram building in New York City, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

If you’d like some inspiration for your glass decorating projects, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: jalbertgagnier, via Flickr.com

Bird friendly building design a priority

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Making bird-friendly building design a priority

Making bird-friendly building design a priority

In the last three decades, glass building designs have achieved a popularity never before seen. Thanks to improvements in glass and glass coatings, glass has become a standard component of energy efficient building designs. But the use of glass in architecture comes with a price, and groups like the Audubon Society and other nature advocates, the adoption of bird friendly building design could significantly reduce bird mortality.

Bird friendly building design can reduce bird deaths

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) attributes the death of hundreds of millions of birds in the United States annually to glass building design. According to ABC, collisions with glass are the second largest source of bird mortality, behind predation.

Just as glass is transparent to human beings and other animals, it’s also transparent to birds. Humans have learned to detect the presence of glass through subtle visual clues like reflections, dirt and window frame construction. Because of the way a bird’s eye works, birds cannot interpret these clues correctly and do not realize that a window is not an open space.

For the most part, birds are daytime feeders, but what many people don’t know is that birds migrate at night. While the vast majority of collisions with buildings occur during the day, nighttime artificial lighting interferes with a bird’s ability to navigate at night, and can cause changes in birds’ migratory patterns and habits.

In 2011, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) added bird friendly building design guidelines. The standard requires building designers to quantify the threat level a design poses to birds, taking into account the building’s construction materials and design details.

Bird friendly building design takes into account such elements of glass as its transparency and reflectivity. It also measures the impact of landscaping around the building that may inadvertently draw birds into close proximity with glass. Tall glass buildings pose a particular problem for birds because they reflect open sky and distant landscaping. Since birds cannot detect the difference between actual open sky and a reflection of open sky, tall glass buildings tend to cause a higher proportion of fatal bird collisions.

The principles of bird friendly building design include minimizing the use of glass; placing glass behind screens or lattice work that helps birds identify solid surfaces; and the use of netting, screens, grilles, shutters and exterior shades. Other techniques, such as the use of angled glass. UV-patterned glass, opaque or translucent glass, or silk screened patterns on glass can also help birds detect glass.

How well can these solutions work? A study done on the glass-and-steel Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City in 2009 showed that the building had one of the highest bird mortality rates in the city. Following a 2014 redesign that took bird mortality into account, bird mortality has been reduced there by more than 90%.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is ideal for creating bird friendly opaque and translucent glass. In addition, Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator can help create permanent bonds between ink and glass. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ products, please visit the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Tim Hickok, via Flickr.com

Could glass have a role in concrete?

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Could glass have a role in concrete?

Could glass have a role in concrete?

Sometimes, people use the words “cement” and “concrete” interchangeably, but in reality, cement is a component of concrete. Concrete is a combination of aggregate (small stones) and liquid cement that cures or hardens over time. The cement binds the aggregate together and makes what appears to be a uniform surface.

Glass powder could be used as a pozzolan

In cement production, additives (called pozzolans) are combined with the mixture to improve the performance of the cement or give it more desirable qualities. Typically, pozzolans are silica-based or aluminum-based. Pozzolans have been used for thousands of years to improve the performance of cement. In fact, pozzolans of volcanic origin have been found in cements made in ancient Crete and Rome.

Today, pozzolans can be natural or synthetic. Two common pozzolans are fly ash, a by-product of burned coal, and silica fume, a by-product of silica smelting. Coal-fired power plants are a major source of fly ash, but fly ash is becoming scarcer as more coal-fired power plants either shut down or convert to natural gas.

Engineering students at the City College of New York (CCNY) have been experimenting with glass powder as a replacement pozzolan for fly ash. The high silica content of glass gives it a high potential. The researchers used glass powder from colored glass that had no recycling value. Although glass is infinitely recyclable, some glass pieces are too small to recycle, and colored glass must be matched with similarly colored glass before being recycled.

Used as a pozzolan, glass powder has some interesting advantages. The cement production process generates CO2, which is released into the air. Substituting glass powder for fly ash reduces the CO2 emissions associated with cement production.

One question about the use of glass powder as a pozzolan is strength. What impact will the use of glass have on the finished product? The researchers have teamed up with the New York City Department of Design and Construction to test the substitute in action. In May, the Department laid down some concrete sidewalk in South Jamaica, NY that uses the new glass-based cement. The City and the researchers will observe the performance of the concrete over time.

CCNY researchers aren’t the only ones looking at the material strength of glass in cement. A research team from the University of British Columbia is experimenting with the combination of polymers, fly ash and glass powder as a potential replacement for some volume of aggregate materials in concrete. The team has determined that it may be able to replace as much as 25% of the aggregate with the glass powder mixture.

Innovative uses for glass can help keep the material out of landfills, even when recycling it back into container glass is no longer an option. We’re not sure what the decorating value of glass powder is, but if you’re considering working with larger pieces of glass and want some inspiration, please check out the rest of our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Hideya Hamano, via Flickr.com

German researchers make liquid glass

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German researchers make liquid glass

German researchers make liquid glass

On the surface, liquid glass doesn’t seem like a major advance. After all, during the standard glass-making process, the silica mixture is molten. In its molten state, the glass mixture is about 2,700° F. Molten glass is shaped, and then cooled to achieve its hardened structure.

Liquid glass hybrid reduces to solid glass

German researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a free-flowing glass-plastic hybrid material that can be formed at room temperature. Once formed, the material can be cured using light. The cured solid can be heated and compressed to remove the plastic. The remaining object is chemically and structurally identical to commercial glass.

Soft molds can be made of any object using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The molds can then be used to shape the liquid glass. Engineers can use this process to make rapid prototypes of objects from glass. The process isn’t limited to making large objects. Scientists can also make complex objects measured in micrometers using this glass prototyping process.

The nanostructure of glass is what allows specially engineered coatings like Glassprimer™ glass paint to work. Glassprimer™ glass paint is designed to alter the nanosurface of glass, creating a permanent bond with the glass structure. As a glass coating, Glassprimer™ is highly UV-resistant, which means it won’t fade or delaminate, even in direct sunlight.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is also guaranteed to last for years when applied according to the warranty instructions. Glassprimer™ glass paint can be used safely in tough environments like kitchens and bathrooms. It’s also durable enough to be used in commercial decorating applications.

Glassprimer glass paint can be color-matched to any major paint manufacturer’s color palette, which means you can use Glassprimer™ glass paint on glass and Plexiglas™ surfaces, and be confident that it will match the latex paints on your walls and ceilings.

If you’d like more information about decorating with 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: Dave, via Flickr.com

Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

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Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

Glass Dress A Fashion Week Hit

Dion Lee, an Australian fashion designer brought a glass dress to last month’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia 2016. The dress that Lee sent down the runway wasn’t what he originally had in mind. He’d originally wanted the A-line shift to be longer, but thought that a longer dress would prove too challenging for the model. The dress, which was made from fishing line and Swarovski crystals, topped the scales at a whopping 33 pounds! Making the dress longer would also have made it heavier – possibly too heavy to wear.
How are glass crystals made?
Chances are that you’ve seen crystal, but you may not know what distinguishes crystal from glass. Ordinary glass is made from silica, lime and soda. That’s the most common basic “recipe” for glass – sometimes called soda-lime glass. Soda-lime glass accounts for about 90% of the glass that’s made today.

Crystal is similar to glass, but the “recipe” is a slight variation. Crystal – also known as “lead crystal” – is made from silica, lead oxide, soda or potash. It can also contain other elements. For better or worse, lead has long been prized for its durability, and its ability to make other things (including paint and glass) more durable. In the United States, the “crystal” label is given to glass that has a lead content of at least 1%. European standards for crystal are much higher. To earn the designation of crystal in Europe, glass must have a lead content of 10%-30%.

Crystal is used primarily for drinking glasses and decorative glass. Lead crystal is a good decorative medium because lead changes the working time and temperature of glass. Ordinary glass needs to be heated to a certain temperature, and can only be worked for a short time before it cools too much to remain pliable.

When lead oxide is added to glass, it not only lowers the temperature to which the glass must be heated, but also it extends the amount of “working time” of the molten glass. A longer working time means that designers have a longer period of time to make more intricate, more decorative glass pieces.

One effect of the longer working time of leaded crystal is that the resulting pieces are thinner than ordinary glass. Thinness comes at a price, however. Leaded crystal is more prone to breakage and surface damage. Thin doesn’t mean lightweight, though. Crystal is often heavier than similarly sized soda-lime glass, thanks to the weight of the lead inside.

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

Photo Credit: Liz West, via Flickr.com

Printed glass tiles and shower doors

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Printed glass tiles and shower doors

Printed glass tiles and shower doors

One of the newest decorating trends is the use of printed glass tiles and shower doors. Printing on glass allows photorealistic images to be deposited on glass surfaces. Unlike backpainted glass, where color or images are applied to the back side of transparent glass, glass printing takes place on the surface of the glass.

Printed glass offers residential, commercial options

UV inkjet printing offers some exciting options, not just for decorating but also for commercial applications. One of the challenges of printing on glass is that printed inks are typically not UV-resistant. When exposed to direct sunlight, the inks will fade. This makes using printed glass a challenge in both commercial and residential settings because it affects the longevity of the printed glass.

Glassprimer™ makes a specialty primer for UV-inkjet printing that extends to UV-inkjet printing the permanent bond that Glassprimer™ glass paint is famous for. With the Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, inks can permanently bond to the glass surface, improving the longevity, durability and vibrancy of the finished product.

Image stability and durability means that you can decorate surfaces in your home or interior commercial space with printed glass. Printed glass tiles, shower doors and backsplashes will create an innovative and completely customized appearance, whether in the residential or commercial setting.

Printed glass in the commercial setting offers new opportunities to make branding impressions. Commercially, printed glass would work well in fitness facilities, restaurants, event venues and retail spaces. In addition to being eye-catching, printed glass is less expensive than other durable architectural materials and can be cleaned and sanitized easily. Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator works on any type of glass, so it could be used on ordinary plate glass, float glass or even rolled glass.

In a residential setting, printed glass opens new decorating possibilities by allowing the homeowner to incorporate photorealistic art and design in any space in the home. If you would like more information about Glassprimer™’s glass surface molecular activator, please visit our site. If you’d like to purchase Glassprimer™ glass surface molecular activator, please visit our online store .

Photo Credit: Sprinz