Backpainted glass a hit for home décor

If you’re looking for a quick, cost-effective way to update your kitchen, consider backpainted glass or backpainted Plexiglas™. Backpainting does not require special tools, and you can complete backpainted projects in a few hours or days. You’ll want to use Glassprimer™ glass paint because ordinary paint won’t stick to glass.

Backpainted glass makes a great surface for backsplashes, walls and cabinet fronts. If you’re worried about the weight of a glass surface, you can also use Plexiglas™ and achieve a similar effect. Backpainted Plexiglas™ is a great alternative for cabinet fronts because it is very lightweight and will not put extra stress on the hinges. You can use Plexiglas™ to quickly reface existing cabinet fronts that have worn or been damaged.

To backpaint, you’ll need glass or Plexiglas™ that’s been cut to size. If you intend to use glass near a stove, you’ll want to use tempered glass. Consult with a glass shop to be sure you get the exact size glass you need. Once glass has been tempered it can’t be cut, so you need to start with glass that’s ready to go.

Glass and Plexiglas™ require minimal surface preparation before you apply Glassprimer™ glass paint. Surface prep includes washing the surface of the glass with rubbing alcohol and lightly abrading it with fine steel wool. This will remove oils and other surface contaminants that may prevent the paint from adhering to the surface.

Dry the surface with ordinary paper towels. (Don’t use the lint-free kind; the store brand cheapies are ideal here.) That’s it! You’re ready to apply Glassprimer™ glass paint to the glass surface.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is engineered to form a permanent bond to the glass, so once the paint is cured, it won’t come off. The paint dries to the touch in a few hours, and you can recoat once the paint is dry. The easiest paint application method is spraying with a high-volume, low-pressure paint sprayer. You can find these at any home improvement store. An HVLP paint sprayer is ideal because it actually minimizes the amount of paint you need to cover a surface, while providing an even coating of paint. An HVLP paint sprayer works with any kind of paint, so you can add one to your kit and use it for any future paint project. You can also apply paint to glass or Plexiglas™ using a good quality brush or roller.

Once the paint is dry, you can flip the glass and mount it using a neutral cure silicone adhesive, also available at any home improvement store.

Corning puts Gorilla Glass in Automobiles

If you have a mobile device, chances are very good that it uses Corning’s Gorilla Glass to protect its touch screen. Gorilla Glass has been used in more than 4.5 billion mobile devices. Corning has just announced that Gorilla Glass is making its debut in the ultimate mobile device: the automobile.

You might think that break-resistant glass is an obvious choice for a car, but you won’t find Gorilla Glass in windshields anytime soon. Gorilla Glass will be incorporated into a full glass center console developed by Faurecia and on display at the Paris Motor Show this month.

According to Faurecia, the Gorilla Glass will be used in a cold-formed touchscreen cover for the company’s “Smart Pebbles” configurable console application. The console contains the vehicle’s entire instrument display cluster, as well as an airflow management system. The console application supports autonomous driving, as well as conventional driving, and is fully touch controllable.

When a vehicle is in autonomous driving mode, the system activates a second screen and produces a tabletop which the occupants can use for storage, work, eating or leisure activities.

The glass cover is 3-dimensional, and can be formed in any shape. The touchscreens use AMOLED lighting, and can interface with other mobile devices. The Smart Pebbles system also includes seating controls and amenities designed to improve the comfort of the cabin.

Corning and Faurecia believe that consumers want their vehicle displays to function similarly to current smart phones, and have designed the Smart Pebbles applications to duplicate the smart phone experience. Cold-formed glass is less expensive to manufacture, a consideration that will be attractive to automotive manufacturers. The improved visibility of the AMOLED displays under the Gorilla Glass also means that the displays can be flush mounted; they will not require additional dimensional shading to maintain visibility, even in direct sunlight.

Philly Office Building To Use Photochromic Glass

A new office building planned in Philadelphia will use photochromic glass. The windows will tint automatically to reduce glare and solar heat gain. The building, known as 3.0 University Place, will open in early 2018. The 189,000 square foot building’s windows will have sensors that detect the level of ambient light and tint to reduce glare and heat buildup.

The windows, made by SageGlass, can also tint via remote control, to better suit the preferences of building occupants. Photochromic glass won’t be the building’s only energy-saving trick. The structure will feature solar panels on the roof and a rainwater collection and purification system for water use inside the building. The building will be the third in a planned development of six buildings that all feature energy-conserving, environmentally friendly operational techniques.

The Steward Partnership, the buildings’ developer, is seeking LEED Platinum certification for 3.0 University Place. Platinum LEED certification According to the developer, the building does not yet have an anchor tenant, but several Fortune 500 companies are in talks to occupy the space when it is complete.

Energy conservation is driving building design. Glass plays a major role in reducing energy consumption and energy costs. Whether by using photochromic glass, window treatments, energy efficient windows or glass coatings like Glassprimer™ glass paint, in most cases, light control equals heat control, and heat control equals a reduction in energy consumption.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is specially formulated to make a permanent bond with glass. Unlike ordinary paints, Glassprimer™ glass paint will not chip, peel or fade, even in direct sunlight or high humidity. Glassprimer™ bonds with the glass surface by modifying it, so the paint performs year after year, even in demanding conditions.

These GFRC pieces are nearly 7′ tall.

If you’re always on the lookout for interesting decorative materials, get to know glass fiber reinforced concrete. If the word “concrete” immediately makes you worry about weight, you should definitely read on.

Glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) is used to create façade panels, shaped concrete, countertops and other similar surfaces. GFRC can also be used for smaller, free-standing pieces and decorative molding. It can be used in interior and exterior structural and non-structural applications.

Glass fiber reinforced concrete is made of sand, cement, polymers and glass fibers. It sounds a lot like regular old concrete, except that it doesn’t contain any rock aggregate. This lightens up GFRC substantially. It also makes it more amenable to being shaped, flexed, stretched and compressed without breaking or cracking. Glass fiber reinforced concrete is also strong, which makes it desirable in building and decorating applications.

The secret to GFRC’s strength is the glass fibers. The glass fibers give the mixture its tensile strength under load, while the polymers distribute the load evenly.

GFRC can be made by spraying the concrete mixture into forms while long glass fibers are added. This allows GFRC to be cast in place, and eliminates the need for separate transportation and installation. It also allows the concrete to be shaped in virtually any form.

GFRC can also be made by premixing the glass fibers into the concrete-polymer mix. These fibers are shorter and are not as strong as their “sprayed up” counterparts.

A hybrid method of creating GFRC combines the spray and premixed method. Using this approach, a thin facing coat is sprayed into a mold, then a fiber-reinforced mixture is added to the mold. This approach is usually used to make concrete countertops.

Glass fiber reinforced concrete is about 75 years old. It was first developed in Russia in the 1940s, but didn’t gain much traction until the 1970s. The technique has been tweaked a bit, but it’s gained popularity as the price of cement has risen. GFRC can be created for somewhere between $3 and $4 per square foot.

GFRC can be surface treated in a number of ways, including etching, sand blasting, polishing, dyeing and painting. It can also be pigmented during production. You can use Glassprimer™ glass paint on surfaces like GFRC. Glassprimer™ glass paint makes a permanent bond with surfaces like concrete, and offers exceptional UV resistance.

Industries turn to glass for packaging safety

The issue of safety, especially among food and personal products manufacturers, is coming to the forefront. A recent study of consumers in Europe showed that more than half of respondents were worried about the safety of plastic packaging, especially as it relates to food.

Six out of ten consumers indicated that they were most concerned about plastic food packaging. Nearly half of consumers expressed reservations about the safety of metal food containers, primarily metal beverage cans. In contrast, only 8% of study participants were concerned about contamination from glass containers. Consumers specifically cited food contamination and chemical contamination from leaching as major concerns. More than 8 of 10 consumers think that contamination from packaging could pose a risk to human health.

61% consumers said that they trusted glass as a packaging material. This is up from 48% of consumers who said they trusted glass as a food packaging material in 2010.

The preference of consumers for glass packaging comes at an inconvenient crossroads: fewer efforts are being made to recycle container glass at a time when certain producers are looking to increase the amount of glass packaging to allay consumer concerns about safety.

Glass is inert, which means that it can “contain” virtually anything without interacting with it. That makes it a good choice for packaging from a safety perspective. Glass is also infinitely recyclable; it can be reformed an endless number of times without any significant degradation in quality or safety.

Glass is also attractive from an ecological perspective: when recycled, it reduces the amount of energy required to reform it into a new container. When it is discarded, it does not interact with the environment in a negative way.

New studies show that even organic products can be a source of known endocrine disruptors like bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates because these products pick up chemicals from their plastic packaging. These and other chemicals may also be present in other materials that may come into contact with food – like countertops, for example.

This makes glass a highly desirable surface in the kitchen and bathroom. Additionally, glass is easy to clean and sanitize, and can stand up to most household cleaning agents.