
	The matt optics, with will be achieved on standard float glass or white glass, results from a special etching method, which abrades the glass surface with gossamer delicacy and therefore becomes opaque. This etched surface will only applied as used side, as the metal parts cannot be glued on the etched side. And about fingerprints must not be worried. For our tables we use ESG- or float glass. Worldwide it is produced only from a few large-scale enterprises. The production facilities are situated near the natural resources, especially the quartz sand as well as soda and limestone deposits (e.g. in Germany in the Upper Palatinate as well as in the Cologne Basin). The market is dominated by the main utilizations: in the building construction resp. façade design and renovations, in the window production, special glass for the car industry. The flat glass which is used in the furniture industry is only a vanishing small quantity (max. 5 % of the total output). Float glass is an industrial product and is manufactured fully automatically in huge production lines (about 1.2 km long), at a melting temperature of about 1600° C. Similar to the steel worker’s blast furnace, a glass furnace is designed to have a useful life of about 10-11 years in which tons of flat glass sheets roll off the conveyor belt around the clock, day in day out. They are picked, loaded and transported to the glass processing industry by road, rail and sea. There they are cut to size and the edges are worked. It is only at this stage that they arrive at our workshops for use in our production. The high quality demands especially in the furniture industry treat a very special point of view, which is totally contrary to the glass processors. For the window industry, car industry and the façade design the main criteria is the transparency. The eyes want to look through the material and are focussing the object behind the glass pane. For the furniture industry this is normally contrary. In this application the pane is, as a part of the furniture, the object of the view itself. Therefore every little irregularity will be detected, which sometimes becomes a problem. The quality requirements in respect to flexural strength (brittleness, breaking strength), translucence (blisters, inclusions, clouding), surface quality (scratches, streaks) and glass colour (green cast) are fixed in regulations for DIN and European Standards. Apart from the technical feasibility, the tolerances are mainly influenced by the needs of the key customers. Basically, it is impossible to manufacture glass completely free of blisters, inclusions or clouding. Limits are set by the consistency of the natural material, which is never perfectly pure nor perfectly constant, and the highly complex smelting process. Defects which are outside of the tolerances have been identified and marked on the production line by photo-laser sensors so that they can be isolated and rejected during the cutting process. Inside the tolerance are fine, hairline scratches, small enclosed blisters, fine clouding or inclusions, as long as their effect is not too disturbing in normal light from a distance of 1.5 m. General care instruction Concerning the care of float glass not so much remains to be said. It is a user-friendly but also sensible product which is resistant against almost all normal household acids and alkalines and can be cleaned with conventional non-abrasive cleaning agents. As a part of our range of care products, DRAENERT offers a special Citrus glass cleaning agent. Matt rings on the glass surface come mostly from lime scales from the water and may easily be removed with non-abrasive lime scale cleaners. But glass can easily be scratched due to mechanical impact or may break due to inappropriate use. A few basic principles in handling of glass furniture glass tables have a similar as comparable tables of a different construction but should never be charged with more weight as for regular use. Never use glass tables as a seat. Glass tables are not a children’s toy Glass should never be exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations (e.g. a hot pot or a deep-frozen bottle). This may provoke a spontaneous break. Please always use coasters. Be careful with ceramics, porcelain or diamond rings, which may provoke scratches due to their extremely hard edges. Please use coasters. Damaged edges may provoke sometimes - also time-delayed - a break of the glass pane. As the bottom glass plates may easily be scratched on stone or ceramic floors, PVC slide pads should be used (available on request). top		Product information about floatglass Product information about security glass Product information about bevelled glass Product information about glass lacquered with colours Product information about satinated glass