Hi,
Just went to H2O to look for a 4ft fish tank.
The lady recommended the JEBO tank and claim that it is made of 'Float Glass'(hope I got the spelling correct) unlike others that is just tampered glass.
My question is, what is 'Float Glass'?
What is it advantages as compared to other types of glass?
Thanks.
Float glass is given the name due to its manufacturing process. I'm not sure about the specifics, but I believe the molten glass is floated on a layer of mercury during manufacturing... In short, the end process is glass which achieves superior optical clarity. I'm not sure about what this does for the strength and safety of the glass though. Most Juwel tanks on the market also claim to use float glass.
Allen
ok just did a quick search.... looks like I made a bit of mistakes above... its molten tin not mercury... heres something I cut out from two different sites on the net on float glass
site 1:
"Manufactured using a horizontal drawing process where the molten glass is drawn out on a layer of molten tin. Because of the tin manufacturing process, float glass is a high quality, defect free, flat, uniformly thick, economical product. The flatness characteristic makes it an especially popular choice."
site 2:
"The preferred method of glass fabrication is through what is known as the Float Process. This differs from the old way of making glass which is known as the Drawn Sheet method. In the drawn sheet process, sheets are literally drawn out of a vat of molten glass. The result is an inferior glass which is optically impure.
A Typical Float Line
The float process entails melting recycled glass, called cullet, silica sand, potash, lime and soda in a furnace. The molten glass is pushed through an opening onto a bed of molten tin, where it cools as it travels along to be cut into sheets. The speed that the molten glass travels at determines its thickness."
Allen
Thanks Allen.
man, you learn something everyday! [:]
why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica
tempered glass is for safety
float glass is for quality
to say one is better than the other, well, it depends on who's making the money out of selling it, ainnit?
I heard that fish tank (especially big ones)made of tampered glass are extermely dangerous.. I heard from someone that there was one big tank in one office broke one day when no one was in the office, many of the shattered glass bits actually went into the wall (or partition). Have you heard of this before? I thought this could be possible.
Resistance is futile, you will be administrated!
Nicky,
Not surprising... when a 6 foot tank bursts, thats already about 540kg of water behind that force.
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
if it were not tempered glass, you'd have seen flying shards of glass instead of small pieces
any kind of glass will give you the same end results : stand there when it bursts and you're screwed
why it's considered safety glass is because when someone breaks a glass bottle, you don't get shards which could be used as a weapon
Is there a tampered float glass fish tank around in the market?
Sure... if you buy a float glass tank, I'll be more than happy to tamper with it----------------
On 12/11/2002 11:11:33 AM
Is there a tampered float glass fish tank around in the market?
----------------
On a more serious note, I'm not sure whether float glass comes in a tempered glass type.
Allen
i doubt it
and it's tempered glass
tempered glass is made by cooling the other layers of glass more rapidly than the inside
i don't see how they're going to do it when the glass is on top of molten metal
Resistance is futile, you will be administrated!
Pat... yes, read the first post in this thread.----------------
On 12/11/2002 11:11:33 AM
Is there a tampered float glass fish tank around in the market?
----------------
Vincent - AQ is for everyone, but not for 'u' and 'mi'.
Why use punctuation? See what a difference it makes:A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
mmm… blow cold air from the top while the bottom is in contact with the molten metal?----------------
On 12/11/2002 2:16:33 PM
tempered glass is made by cooling the other layers of glass more rapidly than the inside
i don't see how they're going to do it when the glass is on top of molten metal
----------------
why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica
This is what Eheim MP series of aquarium states:
"Made of Special 'float' glass for better transparency, better against scratches,stain and crack, thicker glass for safety. 100% German made."
Just another choice for me to consider.Only problem with this one is what am I going to do with the hood if I am going to use more lights.
I do not think that is a tempered glass tank. When tempered glass shatter, yes, it breaks into many many small pieces. But the pieces will not have sharp edges... and I don't think it can penetrate the partition. That's the reason tempered glass are used for safety reasons.----------------
On 12/10/2002 10:05:20 PM
I heard that fish tank (especially big ones)made of tampered glass are extermely dangerous.. I heard from someone that there was one big tank in one office broke one day when no one was in the office, many of the shattered glass bits actually went into the wall (or partition). Have you heard of this before? I thought this could be possible.
----------------
Usually the heat treatment for tempered glass comes after the annealling process. I think float glass may still be "tempered" because anealling is the after the "float". Well, not too sure... just deducing only.
BC
Yes... float glass can be tempered.
Check this.
BC
Can we tell by our naked eye what type of glass our tank is made of?
Even if the LFS say one thing, you can't be sure, right?
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
Most interesting article on the float/tempered glass. So it looks like you have fully tempered glass, then you have heat treated and chemical treated tempered glass... that was a good read. []
KF,
not sure if you can easily tell... the only thing you can say is that float glass is optically pure and very smooth in surface... as such, any glass which has small imperfections is almost certainly not float glass.
Allen
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