On Friday, March 24th, the SCGMA Young Professionals Group held their first in-person educational event of 2023 – a tour to Guardian Glass. Young professionals from several of our contractor members toured Guardian’s manufacturing facility in Kingsburg, CA to experience how glass is made and coated.
After our brief Innovation and Technology Meeting, we kicked off the event by touring the plant to see first-hand how sand and silica are transformed into glass and enhanced with performance coatings. YPGs had the opportunity to witness each step of the float glass process as raw materials enter the furnace, batch ingredients enter the melting tank, the semi-solid glass ribbon floats atop molten tin, the glass ribbon passes through the annealing lehr, the glass is scored and subsequently cut, The glass is lifted off the line, and finally a low-e coating is applied in a sputter deposition process.
We wrapped up the tour with an open discussion and a presentation from Guardian’s Architectural Design Manager, Reece D. Poth, outlining an overview of the glass float process, the various guardian products and selecting the right performance coatings focusing on U-factor, Solar Heat Gain Coefficient and visible light transmission. Click here to view the Presentation Slides.
We would like to express a special thanks to the Guardian Glass team for a great successful event. Our mission to strengthen and shape the future of our industry by investing in the growth of our glass and glazing young professionals is made possible through collaboration with industry leaders like Guardian Glass.