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Press release - 1/30/09
Gary Mauer at Glass Performance Days 09
I'm pleased to announce that Glass Performance Days (GPD), the world's largest international technical conference recently accepted my proposal to present a paper called, "Monitoring problematic fabricating debris defects on tempered glass surfaces" at their biennial conference in Tampere Finland this coming June.
The GPD presentation will be an extension of dialog with fabricators that began at the IWCA convention in 2005 - when I first asked a fabricator if they used their own scrapers to check their glass for fabricating debris defects after cleaning a furnace. The answer at the time was "no." I first wrote about this
encounter in an article called "Breakthrough on scrapers & fabricating
debris issue?" for the July-August 2005 issue of American Window Cleaner
Magazine. Glass Magazine reported in their April 2005 issue that one of those fabricators said he did check occasionally with a credit card, and did sometimes find problems. Since then very little has been published in glass industry media, but I believe that will begin to change soon.
I reached out to GPD back in October with a proposal, and have been very pleased with the reception they've given me. They have been very professional in every respect. GPD is the world's largest international glass conference, which in their words, was "founded on the principles of transparency, trust and objectivity". GPD has a policy of publishing every paper presented there since 1997 at their www.glassfiles.com site - so this presentation will be freely available, not only to glass industry, but to everyone in the window cleaning industry as well.
Here is the text of the abstract submitted; "In horizontal glass tempering processes, the ceramic rollers are in intimate contact with the glass, and the condition of ceramic rollers is directly associated with glass surface quality. The condition of rollers is directly affected by proper glass washing to thoroughly remove fabricating debris. The author discusses how excessive fabricating debris defects can cause visible scratches during cleaning, and illustrates how readily these fabricating debris scratches are distinguished from scratches caused by mortar, rocks, sandpaper, etc.. The author proposes a simplified surface quality test for fabricators to predict tempered glass performance during future cleaning to remove stickers, paint, and other persistent debris. This test employs a common shop microscope to observe the result of simulated cleaning of uncoated glass with common metal razors, such as those widely used by fabricators to remove stickers and sealant debris." To see this posted on the GPD site - www.gpd.fi/ - follow the link to abstracts, and click on the link for Tempering / Pre-processing.
I'd like to thank JBF, makers of TRIUMPH scrapers, the Association of United Window Cleaners (AUWC), abc Window Cleaning Supply, Detroit Sponge & Chamois, Reach Higher Ground and window cleaners, Barry Schmick, Craig Aldrich, Mike Draper, Geoff Shaule and a growing list of others for their support at the earliest stages.
It will be an honor to represent the window cleaning industry on this issue.
Gary Mauer Window Cleaning Network 262-490-1442
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