Float glass – The material used everywhere
When professionals talk about Float glass they refer to ordinary window glass. Mirit Glas supplies float glass to all sort of industries . Float glass is used everywhere. Right from doors and windows, to lighting and screening glass.
We carry stock in 1-6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 19 and 25 mm.
The name float glass refers to the manufacturing process. Originally, flat glass was made by mouth-blowing glass and flattening it out. Later, cylinders were also used to roll glass. In the 19th century, the man who revolutionized the steel industry, Henry Bessemer, invented a complicated way of making flat glass in continuous lanes. But it was not until Pilkington in the 1950s found out that large sheets of glass could be produced by letting the floating glass run out onto a surface of molten tin. Hence the name Float.
If you are interested in hearing more about this type of glass and how it may be the right solution for you, you are welcome to contact us.
Properties of the glass
Unlike, for example, borosilicate glass, Float glass can only withstand a temperature difference of 40° C, and when the glass breaks, it shatters into sharp pieces. If you want to avoid it splintering into sharp pieces when it breaks, we can temper the glass. The tempering process causes the glass to granulate instead of splintering into sharp pieces if it breaks. Read more about tempered glass here.
Ordinary glass has a greenish tone due to the iron content in the glass. The greenish tone is most visible on the edge and becomes more visible as the thickness of the glass increases.
By reducing the iron content of the glass, you can reduce the green significantly. This type of glass is also called low-iron glass. However, it makes the manufacturing process more expensive and therefore results in a more expensive raw material.
SODA–LIME–SILICA GLASS, SODIUM CARBONATE-CALCIUM OXIDE GLASS AND SODA-LIME GLASS
Float glass is the common name for ordinary glass. It is also known as soda–lime–silica glass, Sodium carbonate-calcium oxide and soda-lime glass, but in everyday speech it is called float glass – or just ordinary glass.
What are the advantages of using float glass?
Float glass is a very useful material that is relatively easy to work with, and can therefore be used in a wide range of functions that suit many different applications. There are also many methods for finishing float glass, which can ensure that it has a very specific appearance. Therefore, float glass is, for example, used for display, where unique products can be presented without any problems through panes of the clear float glass, whose aesthetic possibilities make it the optimal material for this kind of task.
Mirit glass offers
We can process float glass in a number of different ways:
- Customized shape, holes and notch
- Edging – from rough to polished finish
- Sandblasting
- UV gluing/UV bonding
- Paint
- Screen printing
- Thermal tempering. Tempering provides greater strength and safety in the event of breakage.
- Chemically tempered glass
- Bending
- Lamination
- Bent, curved and tempered glass
Tempered glass, toughened glass or strengthened glass are all designations for what we call tempered glass.
We can thermally temper float glass down to a thickness of 3 mm, which means that the glass no longer splinters into sharp pieces, but instead granulates into small blurry pieces – a feature known from the side windows in cars.
Using a chemically tempering process Mirit Glas has the expertise to chemically temper float glass read more about chemically tempered glass here.
Contact us for more information about float glass.
