Virgin Galactic takes off!

Dawn in mojave preparing for gf01 - Virgin GalacticVirgin Galactic has undergone its big we-are-ready moment.  On October 10, 2010, they successfully released and glided the VSS Enterprise, class SpaceShipTwo, from its mothership (at an altitude of 45,000 feet) to the landing strip in Mojave, CA.

The two main goals of this test flight were to have a “clean release of the spaceship from its mothership” and to have the pilots free fly and glide the VSS Enterprise back to Space Port in California.

In case your interested, the mothership is named Eve, class WhiteKnightTwo.  For those of us interested in the private sector (aka, commercial) space race, this is exciting news.

Here’s the official edited Youtube video:

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Tempered Glass Is Always Perfect…Except When It Isn’t

This article is written by Paul Bieber of US Glass and Paul.  It is reposted here with his permission.

Every fabricator strives to deliver perfect tempered glass. That is why you buy from them. Most of the time, they succeed in this perfection. Sometimes their in-house quality program will reject glass, but you never know this. What happens when they ship the glass and your foreman says, “Boss, we have a problem!” Could be you and the fabricator are working to different standards of perfect. ASTM C 1048-04 is the standard for Heat-Treated Flat Glass, either Heat-Strengthened or Fully Tempered. This is the puppy we should all be petting.

Last week we learned that flat glass isn’t perfect, so if a fabricator tempers a piece of flagrantly flawed float (say that three times), and it still meets the standards, you own it. Tempering adds even more variables to the mix.

Let’s read excerpts of the standard on distortion in glass:

7.4.1 “Thermally tempered and heat-strengthened glass is made by heating glass in a furnace to a temperature at which the glass becomes slightly plastic. Immediately after heating, the glass surfaces are rapidly cooled by quenching with air from a series of nozzles. The original flatness of the glass is slightly modified by the heat treatment, causing reflected images to be distorted.”

7.4.2 “…Fully tempered and heat-strengthened glass that has been made in a horizontal furnace my contain surface distortion. Distortion will be detected when viewing images reflected from the glass surfaces.

7.4.4 “Sealed insulating glass units also exhibit distortion regardless of glass type. Air or gas, trapped in the sealed airspace between the panes, expands or contracts, with temperature and barometric changes, creating a pressure differential between the the airspace and the atmosphere. The glass reacts to the pressure differential by being deflected inward or outward.”

The standard addresses concerns that we all have. It acknowledges that glass isn’t perfect. Mostly, when it comes to scratches and rubs in glass, the flat glass standard C1036, applies. So if a scratch is not visible from 11 feet away, it doesn’t exist. These standards are critically important to your business. Ask your fabricator for a copy, or go to ASTM.org, where you will pay a fee for a download.

The biggest issues with tempered glass is size tolerance and ‘bow and warp’.
There are special sections that address both of these.

Here is a basic chart for size tolerance that should be adhered to:

Thickness………Finished Size Tolerance, Length or Width, plus or minus
1/8 ……………………. 1/16
3/16 ………………….. 1/16
1/4 ……………………. 1/16
3/8 ……………………. 3/32
1/2 ……………………. 1/8
3/4 ……………………. 3/16

As this is a plus or minus tolerance, one side of a 1/2 lite can be full by an eighth, the other side shy an eighth, making the lite 1/4 out, and it still is acceptable.

The standard for bow and warp is based on the overall size and thickness of the finished lite. Let’s look at the allowable bow in just two thicknesses,

Size(in) 20-35…35-47…47-59…59-71…71-83…83-94…94-106

1/4 ….. (.12)…..(.16) …..(.20)….(.28)….(.35)….(.47)…..(.55)
3/8 ….. (.08)……(.08)….(.16)…..(.20)….(.24)….(.28)…..(.35)

A lite of 1/4 tempered, 48 x 96, can be warped over a half-inch! Do you find this acceptable? The standard does, and if your glass comes in with this warp, what do you do?

Talk with your fabricator early-on in your relationship and understand what tolerances they ascribe to. Do they have a tighter standard for a high-quality piece like a shower door or table top, than they do for general glazing? This is the key. Know what your fabricator expects of themselves and you will know the standard you can promise your customers.

One last thought, these standards are not law. If you make a contract with a customer to provide perfect glass, that is fine. Buy you probably will need to order two or three lites to get one that is dead-on perfect. If you try to always sell perfect, you better adjust your pricing now.

The original posting of the article may be found here.

Senseless Sunday: eyeing time

  • The old statement “a broken clock is right at least twice a day” is meaningless if the clock is digital.

  • The tool used in old shoe stores to measure foot size is called a Brannock Device.

  • The eye muscle is the fastest reacting muscle of the whole body. It contracts in less than 1/100th of a second.

  • The number googolplex cannot be written out since a googol of 0’s (zeros) cannot fit into the observable universe.

Understanding the Glass Standards

This article is written by Paul Bieber of US Glass and Paul.  It is reposted here with his permission.

Glass and perfect don’t go together in the same sentence. There will always be something that the fussiest customer will complain about. Your two options are curling up with a bottle of Southern Comfort or understanding the glass standards that are used within our industry.

The basic standard is ASTM C 1036-06. This means: American Society for Testing and Materials, Standard # C1036, updated in 2006. If you want to download the full standard (for a small fee) go at ASTM.org and you will see the breadth of their offerings. You may be able to get a full copy from your glass wholesaler or key fabricator.

This is the standard for flat glass, that is annealed glass coming from the floaters. Tempered and laminated glass have different standards which we’ll discuss in the future. But this is the parent of all the standards. If something is allowable by this standard, it is allowable in tempered or IG, or Lami, or whatever. I cannot stress how important it is for you to use this standard. Your vendors do. I bet every glass shop in America has called up their fabricator complaining about a small scratch on Mrs. Johnson’s IG unit, and hears that it is within standards. You must understand these standards, and be able to manage your installs and problems using C1036-06 as a guideline.

Let’s look at the standard. Again, this is for annealed glass, coming from the floater, or going to you, or to your customer. there are various sections in the standard, here is section 1.3: “The specification cover the quality requirements of flat, transparent clear, and tinted glass. This glass is intended to be used primarily for architectural glazing products including: coated glass, insulating glass units, laminated glass, mirrors, spandrel glass, or similar uses.” This covers it all. Your products are in this list.

The next point to understand is there are 4 different qualities of glass mentioned, Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Each has different standards, with Q1 being the fussiest and Q4 the most lax. Q1 is defined as glass for high-quality mirrors, Q2 for general use mirrors, Q3 for “Production of architectural glass products including coated, heat treated, laminated and other glass products.”, and Q4 as general glazing applications.

The average glass shop should expect their products to meet Q3. Here are some examples of the Q3 standard:

  • Blemishes under 1.2 mm allowed
  • Blemishes 1.2-2.0 mm allowed if 24″ apart
  • Blemishes over 2.0 mm not allowed

So if there is on small blemish in a piece delivered to you, you own it.

Let’s look at one other part of the standard–The Q3 “allowable Shell Chip Size”, which details what size chips are allowed:

  • Chip Depth Less than or equal to 50% of glass thickness
  • Chip Width Less than or equal to glass thickness
  • Chip Length Less than or equal to 2 times the chip width.

So if you sell ‘perfect glass’ and promise beautiful glass, you may not be able to purchase beautiful glass from your fabricator. Sure, you can buy two of every order, and one will be better than the other, but you won’t be in business for more than a week or two. Ask your fabricator what standards they use, and if they do the same or better than C1036. That answer is what you have to sell to.

Tempered and Lami have even looser standards, which we will discuss next week [in the next article].

The original posting of the article may be found here.

3Dconnexion 3D Mice now support Vectorworks 2011

It seems that I cannot have too many technical articles on SolidWorks Legion without also having straightforward product announcements in the mix.  I’ll have a couple of articles later this week that cover a topic I found to be interesting regarding glass standards by Paul Bieber.  For now, here is a product announcement from 3Dconnexion.

3Dconnexion announcements

Vectorworks3Dconnexion has announced that their full line of 3D mice now support 2D/3D AEC CAD design software.  By full line, I assume they are talking about currently supported 3D mice, such as the SpaceNavigator and SpacePilot.  Anyway, 3Dconnexion claims the following.

3D mice further enable professionals to draft any shape, on any plane, and in any view in an intuitive manner that augments the simplified and unified design experience offered in Vectorworks 2011.

When working in the true 3D modeling environment in Vectorworks 2011, 3Dconnexion 3D mice provide a level of design interaction that is unattainable with a traditional mouse and keyboard.

My own experience with 3Dconnexion

It should be noted, as a matter of disclosure, that 3Dconnexion did give me a SpacePilot PRO back in 2008.  They did so with no strings attached.  I can say whatever I want about the device (and I have).  In general, I have found the device indispensable.  It took time to become that valuable.  However, I must admit, when I find myself reaching for a 3D mice at someone else’s workstation and its not there, I know just how valuable the SpacePilot PRO is to me.

In other 3Dconnexion news

One more item for the day.  3Dconnexion has a design challenge.  The purpose of this challenge is allow users to show off their 3D skills.  This challenge is also promoting the fact that 3Dconnexion has a Facebook page.  For more information, check out their website.

3Dx Facebook Contest

3DVIA goes 3D

3DVIA Studio Stereoscopic immersionLast week, Dassault Systemes announced that the free download of the new 3DVIA Studio development environment now includes drag and drop stereoscopic 3D.  They state that this allows any user of the 3DVIA Studio to quickly create a “3D experience”, not only for 3D monitors and TVs, but also for non-stereoscopic screens using the traditional red-blue glasses.

They claim the new functionality in their free 3DVIA Studio application will help developers and “average customers”.  3DVIA Studio comes with tutorials that can get users started with this functionality within minutes.

I’ve personally not dabbled with the stereoscopic toys in 3DVIA Studio yet.  I did try out 3DVIA Studio recently, and I’m looking forward to playing around with it more.  For now, here’s a quick introductory video about the new fucntionality.