Tempered Glass Resurfacing Service
What is Tempered Glass Resurfacing?
What circumstances would require tempered glass resurfacing?
First of all, what IS tempered glass? Tempered glass, also called safety glass, works by creating a tension layer that will shatter into many small pieces if the glass is broken. This is safer than large pieces of glass shards. However the tension makes the glass stronger than annealed or non-tempered glass.
Because of this, the glass needs to cut into the desired size before it’s tempered. If it’s cut or drilled afterwards, it will shatter.
Fabricating Debris Origins and The Jagged Little Edge
When annealed glass is cut, the edge is not clean but jagged. If this glass goes thru the 1100-degree F tempering furnace, little pieces of glass from the jagged edge will pop off and land on the surface of the already softened glass. These little bits of glass create an inferior product.
To smooth the glass edges, a sander squares the edges, eliminating the bits of glass. However, this creates a new issue, glass dust. The glass must be meticulously cleaned so that no glass dust remains before tempering. If the is glass dust on the surface, it too becomes fused to the glass. While usually microscopic, it creates what is known as, fabrication debris.
The Fused Glass Debris and Tempered Scratches Connection
Razor scrapers have been the go-to tool for window washers for decades. For annealed (non-tempered) glass, this is never a problem.
However, when tempered glass has glass dust fused to its surface and a scraper is utilized, widespread scratches will appear from the fabrication debris.
This happens when the glass debris becomes trapped between the leading edge of the blade and the glass. Scratches will definitely occur. This is where tempered glass resurfacing is needed.
Flawlessly Polishing Tempered Glass
When fabrication debris is present, tempered glass gets scratched. It can be described as light scratches everywhere with medium to deep scratches mixed in between. Some describe this type of scratch damage as spider webs. This type of scratched glass always shows up more noticeably in sunlight.
The solution for fabrication debris scratched glass is total resurfacing and glass polishing.
The entire layer of scratches is removed and the glass is thoroughly and evenly polished back to like new. Care needs to be taken with tempered glass resurfacing or else visible waviness or distortion will occur.
Unscratch the Surface – Tempered Glass Polishing Services
As with any skill, tempered glass resurfacing requires near perfect execution. The issues we have observed from inexperienced scratched glass guys are, swirls, haze and distortion. If the glass is not worked evenly and consistently, all these issues can occur. Unscratch the Surface has literally resurfaced tens of thousands of scratched tempered glasses.
If this is an issue on your construction project, contact us at once and we will start formulating a solution. Scratched tempered glass is definitely a problem. Resurfacing tempered glass is the solution!
