Window of opportunity
Glass can be as pedestrian as a soda bottle or as exotic as a load-bearing bridge. Not a true solid, glass is forever in motion, although the wavy glass in old home windows is not evidence of slo-mo dripping; it cooled that way.
For Jonathan Redwood, principal at Fairfield-based Dimensions in Glass Inc., which celebrates 25 years this year, that”™s just the beginning.
Redwood admittedly founded the company having broken a few panes, but with little other knowledge of glass. A friend ”” long gone from the business picture ”” got him interested.
He has since come to study glass and his enthusiasm pours forth during discourses on plexiglass (“can”™t be too big”); laminated glass (“like a front windshield, two pieces of glass with plastic in between”); hurricane glass (“like laminated, but with thicker plastic in between”); and tempered glass (“heated to just below the melting point of 1,500 degrees and then cooled with jets of cold air”).
A person expects a cobbler to know shoes and a mechanic to know cars. In a like vein, Redwood does not disappoint. The checkerboard spot pattern visible on some car windows? That”™s where cold air jets hit hot glass. He pointed to a piece of tempered glass and said with a hint of boyishness: “You could hit it with a baseball bat and it wouldn”™t break. We did a 9-by-5-foot glass bridge that was supported only by the edges; 4 inches thick.” The bridge can hold 5,000 pounds.
Yes, Redwood confirms, “We”™ve done bulletproof glass.”
True to his passions ”” more than once calling products and processes “cool” ”” Redwood explained that to stop a bullet with glass, a parfait of multiple glass and clear composite layers is used.
Dimensions”™ bread and butter, however, is the glass-enclosed shower. “The majority of our business ”” I”™d say 75 percent ”” is frameless showers.” But he”™ll handle the baseball-through-the-window job and hope it leads to more. “We really don”™t say ”˜no”™ to anybody,” he said. “That can be a hindrance, but it keeps us where we are today.”
A good percentage of the remaining business is in mirrors ”” some of which are made to look antique and some of which are just plain massive, as with 110 10-by-5-foot mirrors Dimensions installed in a Bedford, N.Y., home.
Painted glass in any color is now popular, one benefit being you can write on it (and erase clean as new). The latest twist offers magnetized glass.
Requests for stained glass and etched glass still trickle in and Redwood accommodates by contracting out the technical work. As for the wired glass that was a staple of many grade school doors and windows, “That”™s always popular.”
Back in the day that meant, basically, a metal-framed piece of plastic or glass. Today, the look is frame-free and tempered glass in single panels: in the trade known as 3/8-inch monolithic or half-inch monolithic. “You could stand on it,” Redwood said.
Although Redwood will repair a broken garage window, most of his clients are designers and architects. “There”™s nothing typical in this business,” he said. A recent job involved a 7-by-9-foot mirror. “It weighed140 pounds, but it was very weak,” he said. “It was a quarter-inch thick and made even weaker because we had drilled holes in it ”” all suction cups and braces to install.”
Beyond that, the sky is the limit, including a glass elevator for a yacht, etched panels with the history of technology on them and bathrooms for the rich and famous: Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Keith Richards, Sandy Duncan and Brendan Frazier. A shower enclosure runs $2,000 to $8,000. Since there is no shimming or shaving off a bit, as with wood products, Dimensions assumes responsibility for the measuring. Redwood said frameless has been the trend for about 23 years.
Dimensions also manufactures “ice glass,” which it produces via three layers of glass, a hammer, a nail and a good bit of physics. Twin glass panels sandwich a tempered pane. With the strike of hammer and nail ”” “If you”™re careful, you”™re fine” ”” a wave of energy traveling about 3,000 mph shatters the middle pane and a perfectly safe, highly crazed pane emerges called ice glass.
“It”™s form and function,” Redwood said both of glass and of his business. “Basically, we provide every kind of glass for every customer ”” even 1-inch-thick; it”™s very expensive, but it”™s a cool piece of glass.”