Manufacturing and Production

Flat Glass Processing: Cutting, Toughening and Laminating

Processed glass is expensive, fragile and made to measure, so a fault discovered after toughening is a total loss rather than a rework, and the fault was usually introduced at the cutting table. This course works in that order. Delegates work through float glass properties, thickness, and the stress state a processor inherits. Cutting is covered including scoring, breaking, and the edge quality that determines whether a pane survives toughening. Edgework follows through grinding, seaming and polishing. Drilling and shaping are addressed with their minimum dimension rules. Toughening is covered in operational detail: heating, quenching, the surface compression achieved and the fragmentation test that proves it. Roller wave, bow and anisotropy are treated as the quality limits of the process. Heat soaking and nickel sulphide inclusions are addressed, since spontaneous breakage is the industry's most costly failure. Laminating follows through interlayer handling, assembly, nipping and autoclaving. Insulated glass units are covered. The course closes on handling, packing and site breakage claims.