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Just scares the bejeebers outta me when I see cement or tufa artists claiming you can use broken windsheild glass for enhancement because it isn't sharp.
Did you see the link here for the glass artist that uses broken tempered glass on glass ?
*LOL* Great demo, although I learned the hard way. BTW, those edges are VERY sharp, too!
A lil story about tempered glass. I needed to install a custom leaded window in an upper stairwell. It was about 6' tall by 8' wide. Huge, heavy window to try to maneuver inside the house and install. After inspection, the existing window needed to be removed from the outside. Luckily, there was a porch roof (with only a slight incline) to stand on.
After removing the aluminum strips that held the window in, I was dismayed to find that (yet another) dumb contractor had used liquid nails instead of clear silicone, to install the existing window. (*GRRRR*)
After about 2 hours of patiently trying to razor knofe out the liquid nails so I could get that f***er out, I finally lost patience. (Time is money, after all) and decided to break the window out. After draping the floor inside and informing the homeowners, I took my large (24 oz) hammer and swung. I rebounded so hard from the (unbeknownst to me) tempered glass that it almost knocked me off the roof!
I wasn't being obtuse, as there was no way to reach the window from inside the house without a ladder, there is no building code that required tempered glass. Triple strength would have been fine.
So, cursing I went back to scraping and cutting around the edge. An hour later, I said *&#@@&&, and decided to break the tempered glass. I put a screwdriver at the edge of the window and smacked it with all my might. I heard the tiniest "pop". I stepped back and watched this huge window shatter like the demo...only upright-- vertical, and HUGE ('member, we're talking 48 sq foot of glass, here) . The crackling sounds were amazing, it was so cool to watch! it took at least 2 minutes (maybe more) to fully shatter and then just dropped all at once, like a cloudburst! It was phenomenal. Really. I will never forget it. (It was even worth all the sweeping up!)
desert_witch: your description of removal of that glass panel had me howling! One reason that an installer would use tempered glass in that situation is their own safety! Even using glass cups (big suction cups w/ handles on them), anything that size if it breaks during install/replacement can send a sheet of glass plummeting down (like guillotine). The liquid nails boggles my mind, but doesn't surprise me -- subcontractor probably didn't use "setting blocks" along bottom edge of glass, either. You'll also see them using silicone to seal edges of mirror to wall (instead of framing out w/ j-metal), also on mirror backs, rather than using mirror-mastic. Silicone eats into mirror back and it will have to be replaced after only a few years.
scooterbug:
I tried hunting up link you guys were talking about -- searched that site for any occurrence of "tempered glass" as well as "tutorial" neither are there.
Okay, now I got playing around some more, couldn't find that one, but here are some other things I found:
But I still want to find one that shows the glass crawl and travel across the pane while it seems to expand.
Safety Glass...
Most car windows are tempered safety glass being 2 panes of tempered glass fused to a clear inner membrane making it more contained as it breaks.
