Curved Glass

Curved glass can be manufactured to pretty much any size and radius to suit requirements. Typical applications for our curved glass include curved façades, shop fronts, windows, glass balustrades, and bespoke shower screens.

Curved glass can come in one of four forms:
• Annealed: standard float glass is the most commonly used for windows, with a heating process used to strengthen the glass for enhanced durability
• Toughened: heat used to make toughened glass for increased strength and safety
• Laminated: made with two or more layers of curved glass, this safety glass is held together by an interlayer when impacted
• Double Glazed: made with two panes of curved glass and a spacer bar

Bending Glass

All curved glass will start life as a standard piece of float glass. The process of turning it into a curved glass is both highly specialised and time-consuming. Hence, curved glass can be considerably more expensive than regular flat glass.

A sheet of glass is cut to size and then cleaned and polished. A steel mould is constructed to the shape of the curve radius and correct dimensions. The glass is painted with a mixture of detergent and calcium carbonate to stop it sticking to the mould.

The glass is placed on the mould and loaded into the kiln and then heated to 700℃. This heat is hot enough to loosen the bonds between the silica molecules so that the glass starts to soften and sink into the profile of the mould. Once in shape, the glass is gradually cooled over a period of a few hours.