Crafting a Beautiful Glass Vitrine Display Case

Today, we built two beautiful glass display cases. The glass is tempered ultra clear/low iron. Ultra clear glass has near perfect transparency. This glass is choice for high end jewelry and clothing stores. The glass is held together with ultra violet adhesive. This bond is super strong thus making disassembly impossible. There is no room for mistake during the construction. Making a perfect glass box is not as easy as it sounds. I have detailed the process below:

This is one of the glass cases we made

What is UV bonding:

What is UV bonding? UV bonding is the process by which two peices of glass are joined together by a UV bonding adhesive. UV bonding can be used on any type of glass- tempered, laminated or annealed plate glass. One must consider the adhesive’s viscosity for each type of glass. One of the greatest advantages of UV bonding is the rate it is able to cure. Unfortunetly, the processes greatest value also serves as one of its hardest intricacy. The reason being is UV bonding leaves little to no time for us to make adjustment. This is especially hard when  trying to achieve perfect angles, or when working with imperfect glass measurements. A 1/64th discrepancy can prove disastrous.

The Process:

The glass, first, needs to be thoroughly cleaned. It is recommended to use alcohol based glass cleaner, and extremely fine non abrasive steel wool. The steel wool, contrary to common logic, will not scratch the glass. Don’t forget to wear gloves! A small fingerprint smudge could ruin the whole process. You need to also heat the glass up to 155F to remove all oils and contaminants. Heating up the glass is an absolute necessity. Next we had to perform a test run We had to setup the adjustable suction cups. We basically did a full dry run.

Useful Links:

• Servicing Areas
• Common Glass Terminology
• Types Of Glass
• Guide To Glazing 

Heating up the glass

Doing a test run, setting up the adjustable suction cups

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