Know Your Glass

Right from the old times in our history, early man has made good use of the thing called glass. Our historians have uncovered that a type of natural glass called ‘obsidian’ was formed for example, inside the mouth of a volcano. This was due to the intensity of the heat that existed inside the volcano when it erupted and sand was melted. It was discovered that early weapons were made from this type of early glass. Obsidian has in the distant past been used for cutting tools and even been experimented with as a medical tool. Our glass today is a mixture of sand and different minerals that are melted to form a material that is right for a huge range of uses from packaging and construction to many different optical technologies. London Glazing know how glass is made. Believe it or not the glass that we use everyday and feels so hard, is really more of a liquid. This is why at high temperatures glass can be poured and manipulated, molded and blown. Today, we have glass making down to a fine art with many different types of glass now being made.

Did You Know?
Glass that we know and use is made in the first instance by melting different minerals at massively high temperatures, and just like treacle, glass is fluid at this high temperature, but its treacle like form, decreases as the temperature is lowered. This means, its viscosity will decrease as the temperature is increased. The water we use, turns from a liquid to a solid at a very low temperature, the glass has no notable melting or freezing point, but is gradually transformed from a solid to a liquid mass as the temperature is raised. The glass is said to have a ‘variable viscosity’, that allows it to be molded into such beautifuland/or practical products. London Glaziers understand the process for glass making.