Posted by cliff/utah on Monday, February 03, 2003 at 10:47AM :
There seens to be some confusion about my post on the last forum "sanding flat glass edges"
First, let me assure you the glass I'm using is automotive type laminated saftey glass, which to the best of my knowledge is nothing more than regular window glass with a gooy membrane between 2 pieces.
My friend at the local bone yard gives me all I want for free (poor people have poor ways)and it is easily cut to size...it just leaves the edges a little rough.
As for tempered glass, to the best of my knowledge, it is nothing more than a thick piece of window glass that has been baked at very high temperatures which make it very hard. Glass can not be cut, sanded, or altered in any way once it has been tempered.
As a final note I would like to say that if someone were out in the back country and somehow suffered a broken window, the person with the tempered glass would have a huge mess to clean up and a big hole in thier truck for the ride home, while the person with the laminated glass would have much better odd's of just having to drive home with a bunch of cracks to deal with.
One more thing..DO NOT think that tempered glass is "safe" when it breaks. It breaks into a quadzillion pieces, each of them sharp and dangerous and traveling with sufficient velocity to cause injury at close range(like the front seat)