Since the '50's glass ("window glass") has been made by the 'float' method ( molten glass on a bed of molten tin - one continuous 24/7 strip of glass until the machine needs to be scrapped after something like 7 or 10 yrs). This method made it possible for the two surfaces to perfectly parallel (hence no distortions) where as the old method of trying to 'polish' the two surfaces to be parallel was not precise.
Bowed/flat - a piece of glass can be perfectly flat and still bowed cuz the way it set into the frame jambs the glass, bending it. Float glass coming from the factory nowa days is flat. When it is made into windows, insulated panels, lami etc. shit happens.
Then there is restoration glass and all the other 'art' glasses that are hand made (not that all restoration glass is hand made) and have all the interesting characteristics that makes it mmmm, interesting.
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Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 1:04 PM
Subject: [BP] bronze and glass

1.    In 1869 a 50-ton bronze frieze depicting the achievements of Cornelius Vanderbilt was installed on his Hudson River RR depot in what is now called Tribeca (it's an exit plaza from the Holland Tunnel).    The depot was demolished in the 1930's and the frieze was scrapped.    >>>What happens to bronze after it's melted down?  Where is it now? 
 
2.    I know why vintage window glass is so interesting - all those imperfections in the surface that catch the light.   But why is modern window glass so bad?  Its more than just the absence of character, it's something unpleasant and disconcerting, perhaps because none of it is really flat, just slightly bowed (in?), which yields disorienting reflections.   Added to this is the doubling, which creates a shadow reflection, as if your vision was fuzzy.    >>Why is modern glass bowed like this?   And is it in, or out? 
 
Christopher
 
(please top post only, preferably in 8 pt type)
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