What is float glass

Float glass is made by floating method. The principle is to continuously inject the glass liquid from the tank and the glass liquid will float on the surface of the metal liquid to shape the glass. The advantage of that floating method is that it can reduce the occurrence of non-uniform of glass or bubbles due to mechanical vibration, and as long as the glass liquid is continuously added to the surface of the metal liquid, the infinitely long glass can be produced.

How transparent float glass looks like?

Types of float glass:

Float glass is widely used for various industries. Float glass can be divided into colored glass, float silver mirror, float glass/car windshield grade, float glass/various further processing grade, float glass/scanner grade, float glass/coating grade, floating glass/mirror grade.

Among them, ultra-clear float glass has a wide range of applications and has broad market prospects. Ultra clear float glass is mainly used in high-end buildings, high-end glass further processing industry and solar photovoltaic curtain walls, as well as high-end glass furniture, home appliances, decorative glass, imitation crystal products, lamp glass , precision electronics industry, special buildings,etc.

The raw glass material Huide Glass uses are mainly clear float glass or ultra clear float glass.

Advantages of float glass:

1. The float glass is made in the tin bath where the glass liquid floats on the surface of the metal liquid. That is why it is called float glass. Therefore, this kind of float glass first has good flatness and no water ripples. Float glass is widely used for mirror making and automotive glass. Flatness is one great advantage of float glass.

2. The second is that the ore quartz sand is used for making float glass, which is a good raw material. That is why the produced float glass is pure and transparent, bright and colorless. There is no glass boils bubbles in the float glass.

3. The third is that the float glass has compact structure, is heavy in weight, and feels smooth. With the same thickness, the float glass is larger per square than that of a flat glass plate, which is also easy to be cut and not easy to break.

4. Competitive price. Compared with ordinary flat glass, with the same thickness, the price of float glass per square meter is around 4RMB higher than that of the same flat glass. Float glass is a good choice for buildings and glass further processing.

How to identify float glass by appearance quality?

1. Check the color of float glass. The good quality float glass is generally colorless and transparent glass or light green glass.

2. Check the thickness of the float glass. The thickness of float glass plate should be uniform, and the deviation of the thickness of a whole piece of float glass should not be greater than 0.2mm to 0.3mm.

3. Check the flatness of the float glass. The surface of the float glass is not allowed to have adhesion that can not be scrubbed off.

4. For the quality float glass, there should be no cracks, and there should be no obvious defects in the corners. There must be no Tin stains, spots, impurities, lines and traces. In an area of half a square meter, there should be no bubbles with a diameter of more than 2mm, and bubbles with a diameter of about 1mm should not be too many, and those bubbles should not be concentrated and scattered.

5. For quality float glass, surface defects such as air bubbles, spots, sand grains, and light distortion points can not be  concentrated together on a whole piece of glass, and the minimum distance between them must be at least 10cm or more.

The differences between float glass and ordinary glass:

1. Ordinary flat glass and float glass are both flat glass. Only their production process and quality are different.

Ordinary flat glass is made of quartz sandstone powder, silica sand, potassium fossil, soda ash, Glauber’s salt and other raw materials, those materials are prepared in a certain proportion, melted at high temperature in a furnace, and the transparent colorless ordinary flat glass is produced by vertical lead-up method, flat drawing method, and calendering method. Ordinary flat glass is divided into three categories according to the appearance quality: high class products, first class product, and qualified products. According to its thickness, there are 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, 15mm, 19mm, 22mm, 25mm thickness flat glass.

Float glass is made of sea sand, quartz sandstone powder, soda ash, dolomite and other raw materials. All those raw materials are prepared in a certain proportion and melted at high temperature in a furnace. The melted glass fluid continuously flows into the metal liquid and floats on the surface of the metal liquid, the flat, fire-polished glass ribbon is formed, cooled and hardened, then separated from the metal liquid, and then annealed and cut to form the colorless flat glass. The surface of the float glass is particularly flat and smooth, its thickness is very uniform and its optical distortion is small. Float glass can be divided into three categories according to appearance quality: high class products, first class products, and qualified products. According to its thickness, float glass can be divided into: 3mm float glass, 4mm float glass, 5mm float glass, 6mm float glass, 8mm float glass, 10mm float glass, 12mm float glass, 15mm float glass, and 19mm float glass.

2. The appearance quality grade of ordinary flat glass is determined according to the number of defects such as ribs, bubbles, scratches, sand grains, pimples and lines.

The appearance quality grade of float glass is judged according to the number of defects such as optical deformation, bubbles, inclusions, scratches, lines and fog spots.

3. For ordinary flat glass, its color is emerald green, and it is fragile, does not have high transparency, it is easy to age and deform under rain and sun exposure.

the transparent float glass is dark green, has smooth surface without ripples, has great perspective and certain toughness.

4. The production process of float glass is different from that of the ordinary flat glass. The advantage of float glass is that its surface is hard,smooth and flat. The color of float glass is different from that of ordinary glass when viewed from the side, it is whitish, and the object is not distorted after reflection, and also generally there is no water-like deformation.