Glass for a wood rdisplay

[Leon]

I am in the process of finishing up a display case for my son. The case will have glass on the front and sides and have a mirrored back. Because of the design the glass is installed from the outside of the case. The rabbets that receive the glass are to receive glass that is 3/32" thick and a 1/4" radius quarter round. Arriving at the glass store that I normally purchase from there is a new girl working behind the counter. She apparently has been there long enough to know the jargon but is clueless when it comes to the actual thickness of glass. When she asked what thickness of glass I wanted, I indicated 3/32". Her response was, we only sell 1/16" and 1/8" thin glass for cabinet use. I knew 1/8" was too thick and 1/16" breaks too easily. She pulls out two samples of the glass and I look at their thicknesses and I tell her I want the 3/32" piece. She says again that the samples are 1/16" and 1/8" thick. I put the edges of the two pieces side by side and told her that one was clearly not double the thickness of the other. Yes, the thinner one is much closer to 3/32". Grabbing four of her 1/16" thick samples and putting into a stack and three of her 1/8" samples and placing those in a stack beside the other stack they are of equal height. I looked at her and said, four

1/16" thick pieces of glass stacked should not be the same thickness of three 1/8" thick pieces of glass stacked together. She looked at me like I was crazy.

When I got home the glass measured out with the dial caliper at 3/32" thick.

I do believe that she realized that the 1/8" thick piece was not double the thickness of what she was calling 1/16". I suppose that she did not understand that 1/16" is half of 1/8" thick. Geez.

Was this just me being like a noob to wood working and being confused with why a 2 x 4 is not two inches thick? In the past the seasoned employees behind the counter at the glass company knew what I wanted when I said

3/32" thick.

[Lee Michaels]

The practical math skills of many folks these days are none. It is like counting change. Not that many people can do it. Remember back when you got somebody to actually count out change for you?

It could very well be that this person did not know that a 3/32" even existed.

And she probably greatly resented you upsetting her tidy little math world persective too.

My wife used to teach remedial math to grade schoolers as a volunteer. She had a simple plan. She used money. Just dimes, pennies, quarters, etc. They would practice buying and selling candy bars. When they all got it right, they ate the candy bars and kept the money. Her students learned math quicker and better than anybody else!

[Ron Magen]

Leon,

Just another sample of 'our' tremendous educational system. 'Learn by rote', and just enough to pass that pesky 'No child left behind' test. Fractions?, Decimals? Metric? *CONVERSIONS* ????

I've had people 'round off' a number like '10.2' . . to '11'. There just doesn't seem to be any mental connections between 'Cause' and 'Effect'. Or Sex and Conception, for that matter.

I really shudder when 'they' proudly say, 'These children are our future'.

Regards & Good Luck, Ron Magen Backyard Boatshop

"Leon" wrote ... SNIP

[resrfglc]

If you want to really challenge your MATH SKILLS, try reading the Grocery Shopping Ads that (in our area) arrive in your mailbox (or local paper) weekly!

I use them with the grandchildren tasking them to find the best price on their favorite foodstuffs (and junk foodstuffs) giving them a sheet to record the ad price (like Buy two, get one Free) and the net price per item or unit.

I even devised a curriculum tool (in hopes the local schools might pick up on it) called Grocery Shopping Equals Math.

I guess we could now add "Glass Shopping" too.

But, instead of embarrassing the clerk, why not try and share your insights with her?

We all need to help train the next generation and its clear the "leave it to the schools" approach isn't working.

[resrfglc]

"'No child left behind' test."

Given the implied age and experience of the clerk, it would be difficult to blame NCLB for her failures.

Indeed, it is likely that NCLB is part of the reaction to similar situations widely noted throughout retail transactions in America.

Of course, the clerk was like used to serving customers intent on replacing panes in relatively "standard" applications and whom either quoted the nominal measurements or simply advised of the application (window pane, six by nine inches) and accepted what was offered.

I wonderhow many of their customers took out a micrometer before setting off to replace the pane Jimmy's ball busted?

Maybe the arrived with a shard in hand, but carefully executed thickness measurements to the ten thousandth??

[Pop`]

Nah, it's the job requrements and nothing much else. Anything beyond dollars and cents, as in 1/32" etc. is often beyond their comprehension simply because they have never had to use it and thus are unconcerned with it. And, I'm sure any OJT from a customer would be severely frowned upon. Give 'er a break, I say and if you must impart knowledge to her, do so clearly, concisely and quickly; she has other customers and things she may be expected to do.

That round-off makes sense in a lot of places. If you ask for 12.2' of something, most people aren't about to convert a decimal to a fractional inch, PLUS, it's normal for may places to round up regardless of the size wanted. In this area I don't think I have EVER bought an exact 8' 2 x 4; they're always about 8' 1/4" give or take (I assume for end-sanding?) but never less than 8'. It's the way they set up the saws. And I've gottten

10' a time or two because they were out of 8'. It's no big deal; off the shelf isn't expected to be useful.

That sentence and my sig are why I -really- responded to this! ;-)

Pop`

[M Berger]

If she walked into your lumber store and asked for some

1 1/2 by 3 1/2 boards, and you insisted that you only stocked 2 x 4's, we'd be reading about that in her newsgroup.

Maybe she's not a professi> Arriving at the glass store that I normally purchase from there is a new

[Doug Miller]

My question is, who sells 1/16" glass anyway? That seems awful darn thin.

I thought "standard" was 1/10" -- maybe there was a [sloppily] handwritten tag over the tenth-inch glass, on which the zero looked like a six...

[Andy Dingley]

I'd go with the 1/8" My glass is 2mm, 3mm or 4mm. I only use 3mm these days, because I was getting tired of the 2mm breaking. I don't even use it for picture framing or shadow boxes any more. There's really not much where you _must_ be under 3mm.

[charlie]

it's a common thickness for colored glass. it comes in 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, and 3/4. that thickness of clear glass also often used in small box lids or very small fish tanks, for example.

regards, charlie

[MB]

Score one for the metric system. Maybe the clerk was from Europe where they have too much sense to deal with fractions - not to mention inches and feet.

Mitch

[Leon]

I am not sure that saying yourng was implying the age but she looked 28 ish. Young to me at 52 but then I was the manager of a tire store when I was 21. At 28 I was the service sales manager of a large GM dealership in Houston.

In this case, she asked me what thickness.

In my case I use the dial indicator to confirm my suspitions. Visually, it was obvious the the thinner piece was 3/4 the thickness of the thicker piece.

[Leon]

During the 30 minutes that I was there, there was only one other customer. She is the first person a customer sees. She does need to know actual thickness of the product that they sell. None of the glass had sizes on the pieces, only a part tag sticker indicating style and or thickness perhaps.

[Leon]

The very next thing is to explain to the customer of how sizing worked. I had basically tapped her for all she was worth. She simply refused to accept that she was wrong or it was more like the case of She did not know enough to know that she did not know.

[Leon]

1/8" would have caused the moldings to stand proud of the surrounding surface. These pieces are 5.5" wide and 35" long. 3/32" is plenty thick. 3/32" is what I have always bought in the past and what I had planed for. Fortunately I got what I went for.

[Leon]

I'd say metric does make sense for those that are incapable of learning fractions.

[Leon]

I thought that stacking piles of glass samples next to each other would have been adequate. If she was embarrased, it saw not me that did it.

Agreed. The store oner should have filled her in.

[SimonLW]

Anyone working in such an industry should have some clue. I've been in the exact situation. I don't bother arguing. I ask for a sheet of single strength glass and get the right thickness.

On a similar note, most shops have no clue how to tell the tin side from the air side of float glass. This is not well known, but important to businesses and artists who paint or print on the glass. A glass business should know this.

Has anyone noticed over the last few years how single strength glass has gotten thinner? Using my micrometer, I find new glass to be several thousandths of an inch thinner. It doesn't sound like much but it is noticeably thinner in handling and has a large effect on strength.

-S

[Morris Dovey]

| On a similar note, most shops have no clue how to tell the tin side | from the air side of float glass. This is not well known, but | important to businesses and artists who paint or print on the | glass. A glass business should know this.

I guess I'm among the clueless. How does one tell; and why is it important?

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Robatoy]

10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4

10.5

10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 11.0

Do you see anything odd here? The first series round down to 10 and occurs 5 times in the sequence from 10 to 11. The second series round up to 11 and occurs 6 times in the sequence from 10 to 11.

When the rounding up procedure happens 10% more often than the rounding down procedure, what do you think the result will be if you have a Cray XP transact 1 trillion times an interest calculation. We're talking billions of dollars. Which is why they don't use that rounding procedure. They round even numbers down, and odd numbers up (or the other way around, I forgot), That way the occurance is balanced over large numbers of transactions.

IOW 10.2 could be 11?

r