Glass for display cases & shelving

[Ron Angel]

Any recommendations for good source(s) of plate glass. Or places to avoid, for that matter.

ThankX Ron

[Bob G]

================================ Late last winter I was told...by my daughter..so Dear old dad listened... that she wanted a glass topped Walnut coffee table made for her living room to match the other pieces of furniture I had made for her...

Well when I priced plate glass I almost had my 3rd heart attack....ouch

What I ended up doing is visiting several glass shops locally ...most had several pieces laying around...never used, miss cut, never picked up etc...all selling for 1/3 the price of a piece cut to the this I wanted.. So I bought a "hunk" of glass and built the table around it... and DO not even ask the price plate glass with tapered edges ...

Bob Griffiths

[Bay Area Dave]

snip

. So I bought a "hunk" of glass and built the table around

[George]

You want tempered glass only - the kind that shatters into a trillion rhombic pieces - if you're going to use it in furniture except for protected shelving. This means a custom job, because you can't simply cut it with the garden variety cutter. As one poster suggested, leftovers or unclaimed might work. Other thing would be to check where they sell old store displays.

[Andy Dingley]

Don't use plate. It's almost unheard of these days anyway (most glass is now float glass, and that's already flat enough). Plate used to be expensive, but now it's _really_ expensive.

If it's a table top or otherwise hazardous, use tempered glass. This is cheap enough, if you go to the one glazier in town that does the commercial tempered glass trade. If you go to a window fitter, they have a fit of the vapours and go all expensive on you.

Cheapest place for tempered glass (and mirrors) is Ikea, so long as you can use their standard sizes. Go and buy a new glass top for a Smeghead table, and don't tell then you're building your own table.