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lispm
lispm
Another company (Revisalt, an university spinoff in Freiberg/Germany) claims that time and cost for producing such chemical strengthened glass has been much improved:
leeoniya
> While the Superfest glass is by far more durable than normal glass, when they shatter – the burst into a million fine pieces and are a total nightmare to clean up. I’m not sure if it’s because of their potassium chloride coating or because they are made to be super thin, my advice is to not drop them.
maybe the same reason [the super hard] prince rupert's drops explode. really high internal stress.
formerly_proven
Yes, exactly. It's essentially gorilla glass, except gorilla glass in displays is laminated so the shards tend to stick around.
wizardforhire
For anyone interested in making their own gorlla glass…
leidenfrost
Well you can laminate both sides of the glass to achieve the same effect
MichaelZuo
The laminate layer likely reacts somewhat to strong acids in food and drink.
iamgopal
Usually lamination comes in between.
fr4nkr
Unsurprising, but I'd still totally buy a Superfest glass set with this in mind. I've owned glassware that was both fragile and prone to exploding into jagged particles, and it wasn't very cheap, either.
saaaaaam
I have some toughened cocktail glasses made by a commercial (i.e. for bars and restaurants) company called Utopia.
As I was making cocktails one evening I accidentally knocked an empty glass from my kitchen worktop onto my stone-tiled kitchen floor. I was astonished when the glass bounced on its rim and rebounded back up in the air. I somehow managed to catch it. Not the slightest damage. Five years later that glass is still in use.
I bought a box of 12 because that was the smallest quantity they came in, but normally only use two. So I think that box will last me for 20 years or more. They are incredible.
Doxin
We have a bunch of "duralex" glasses that are similarly resistant. We went to buy some more a while ago and I'm sad to say all the new ones have shattered since. The old ones are still going strong though!
sss111
do you have a link to buy this by any chance..?
TacticalCoder
In the EU we have, since decades, the "Arcoroc" brand and it does glasses and plates that really do not break easily. As teenagers we'd have fun with others who weren't aware: we'd take a pile of plates in our left hand and tell the other person "catch them all, quick!" and throw with our right hand plates one after another.
Invariably he'd miss one then many and be in a state of panic and yet none would break when hitting the kitchen floor.
Silly teenagers we were. I see that brand is still around. It's solid.
schappim
I just watched a good YouTube video on this topic yesterday[1].
tommiegannert
"How Communists Made Unbreakable Glass"
What a loaded headline.
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oplaadpunt
No, I don't think it is loaded, or at least not unnecessarily. The communist background of the glass is an important element in the video. Especially when they discuss the fact they couldn't sell it in the west, due to (tendencies of) capitalism.
squishysquid
That they made it in east germany and made up an excuse for being bad at sales?
corning the guys they bring up at the very end is also the company that did pyrex. they spun that business off in the 90s. They don't mention that because you'd recognize it and go "wait my cabinet's been full of that my whole life"
jajko
You dont understand communism then, and didnt grow up under such regime.
Most people involved in such projects were far from what you can call communists, not involved with regine, not members of the party (or if they were it was just to be allowed certain positions in the system, literal ticking checkbox on the requirements list), some even secretly hating it and conspiring against it. This reductionism is unnecessary and outright incorrect.
One can claim it was invented in communist East Germany (although the official name was literally German democratic republic), and thats about it.
You also slap 'invented by american capitalists' onto every single invention coming out of US of past 250 years?
takeda
More accurate title would be "How Germans invented unbreakable glass due to shortages caused by Communism"
_19qg
> The communist background of the glass is an important element in the video. Especially when they discuss the fact they couldn't sell it in the west, due to (tendencies of) capitalism.
And that's nonsense. The real problem was the reunification and the collapse of the East German economy. The East Germans got rid of their government, peacefully and the result was the unification of a protected plan economy to an open social market system (West Germany did not and still does not have US style capitalism -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy ). The East German market was not having access to current technologies and raw materials (for example due to the lack of money to buy on the world market). The companies in the east were not competitive and they lost their protecting system.
There were LOTS of glass manufacturers, both in West Germany and in the surrounding countries. Those were eager to take the market and a small and expensive glass production was an easy victim. There are lots of examples where GDR products were replaced by Western products, which were much more efficient in production and distribution.
It has very little to do with "capitalism", just that there was a much larger and more efficient market around, eager to take over. The "communist" economy wasn't communist and it was behind a self-built "protective" wall. When the wall collapsed and the system which protected the wall collapsed (-> the whole eastern Europe incl. the former Soviet Union largely collapsed), then during reunification of East and West Germany, the East German economy also collapsed (products were no longer competitive, lost their markets, etc.). The West German companies did not have the time to protect small scale producers, their problem was to deliver on the expectations of the East Germans: create same living standards, provide access to the larger market without scarce products.
For the East German population it was mostly clear, they wanted to buy western products, which for a long time were either not available or far too expensive or both. East German brands were out of fashion.
The attraction of the West German economy and political system, together with the failure of the East German system (and its soviet-influenced model), caused the collapse of the political and economic system of the GDR.
Later the "Ostalgie" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie ) made people aware that there was also a loss: familiar brands were gone, familiar products were gone, jobs were gone, people were gone, (-> many went to West Germany to work there) western products were not always better, ...
TLDR; -> the company was a victim of the turmoil of the reunification and introduction of a larger&open economy.
Side note: that East Germans needed to take care of scarce products (see the cars which had long waiting lists) did not mean that the East German production was environmentally friendly. Just the opposite, East German production was as environmentally unfriendly or even more, as in the West. An environmental movement (like the Greens in West Germany) was not possible in the one-party-rules system of the GDR dictatorship. Later, a lot of production got closed(& sometimes replaced) because of old and dirty factories and production processes.
Side note 2: Germany now has a large scale "Mehrweg- und Pfandsystem" for bottles. This means that in any super market one can buy bottles of, say, beer and one pays a higher price. The markets are required to take back the empty bottles and pay the consumer the "Flaschenpfand" (bottle deposit). Bottles get reused a lot (50 times) and this system has 43% market share. One can imagine that lighter/more durable glass bottles might have an advantage in such a system. Currently we see either heavy glass bottles or lighter plastic bottles (reused 25 times).
ginko
I have a set of French Vereco (now Duralex I believe) dishes and bowls[1] from the 60s or 70s which I'm the third generation in my family to use and own.
The tempered glass is almost indestructible as well. I can only remember one time when one of them broke when I dropped it (like with Superfest it'd smash into a million pieces).
You regularly find similar Vereco glassware in thrift stores and flea markets. Mainly because it's almost indestructible. Mine are getting a bit scratched up by now so I'm considering getting new tableware but it's kind of hard replacing something that still works perfectly fine.
[1] Like this: https://l-art-copenhagen.com/products/526194
morsch
You can buy vintage Vereco glassware for 400 EUR/8 pc -- probably less in a thrift store --, or new Duralex glasses for like 40 EUR/12 pc. They're not fancy and they're not expensive. I've stopped doing the party trick of intentionally dropping them to show how sturdy they are because they do break sometimes and it's a huge mess.
kergonath
Duralex glasses are impressively durable. I am not quite sure how they make them, but they bounce several times when dropped. I don’t recall them exploding in tiny shards either, but I may be misremembering.
Incidentally. They seem to be close to bankruptcy (again) and to be looking for investors.
Agingcoder
They’re widely used in school canteens for their durability - like pub owners in the article !
orthoxerox
It seems like everyone I know owns at least one piece from their Beau Rivage (swirly brown) set they bought in the 90's. And Auchan had a huge sale of them (the same pattern!) a few years back.
BugsJustFindMe
People get so into this romantic fantasy of sturdy glass. Simultaneously completely blinded to the downsides and believing that we don't have, CAN'T POSSIBLY have, widely available modern equivalents, because "evil capitalism".
Y'all, it's called Corelle, and you can buy it literally everywhere. It's extremely available. Ubiquitous even. And it's just not worth it for the same reason given right there at the very end in the epilogue:
> While the Superfest glass is by far more durable than normal glass, when they shatter – they burst into a million fine pieces and are a total nightmare to clean up. I’m not sure if it’s because of their potassium chloride coating or because they are made to be super thin, my advice is to not drop them.
The reality is that the failure mode absolutely sucks. Dropping one and having it survive is a neat party trick, but all it takes is one break for the observer to completely swear off the experience forever.
Google "corelle exploded".
Doxin
> The reality is that the failure mode absolutely sucks. Dropping one and having it survive is a neat party trick, but all it takes is one break for the observer to completely swear off the experience forever.
I'd much rather sweep up the equivalent of very coarse sand than deal with shards of glass. There's no need to keep the dog away, or wrap the stuff in a newspaper so you don't shred the bin bag etc. You just sweep it up and are done with it.
forgetfreeman
Google Corelle Brands bankruptcy.
BugsJustFindMe
That's Corelle Brands (previously Instant Brands) the holding company.
Corelle is also a product brand owned by said holding company and their still massively available primary products use their Vitrelle hardened glass material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelle
not
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelle_Brands
GM's bankruptcy was very similar to Instant Brands', and they haven't gone anywhere.
mNovak
Yeah, also came here to point out Corelle. For many years I had a set of Corelle plates and bowls and such that they sold at Target, cheap and aimed at college students.
Likely there's a very mundane reason it hasn't replaced all standard glassware, such as being slightly more expensive or having limited design shapes/forms (thinking of the plates). This doesn't exactly strike me as "evil capitalism," just "throwaway culture". The difference is the consumer makes that choice when both options are available, but one is cheaper.
BugsJustFindMe
IMO the reason it hasn't replaced all standard glassware is that the pro of surviving some drops is massively outweighed by the con of sometimes exploding. People just are not dropping their dishes all the time, and when they do they would rather not have to deal with a kinetic burst of razor shrapnel.
samatman
It should surprise no one to learn that, in fact, capitalism both can, and does, manufacture ion treated glassware. To this very day!
ahf8Aithaex7Nai
I'm not surprised you have to go all the way to Japan to find an example of this.
avianlyric
There’s also a European company that sells ion-exchange strengthened glassware.
Nude Glass’s Stem Zero and Ghost Zero line of glassware is made of this stuff.
samatman
You don't.
Ion-strengthened glassware is manufactured in at least Turkey (Nude glass), France (Duralex) and Portugal (closed the tab and don't remember).
There doesn't appear to be a US brand making glassware with the process, which is a shame. But the US is the leading manufacturer of ion-strengthened glass for technical products, supplying Asian brands. You probably have a piece of it in your pocket.
atlas_hugged
Exactly what I was thinking. They’re one of the two “puzzling” countries for economists, Argentina being the other.
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yorwba
This might be the right place to ask whether anyone is still making vases out of the beautiful iridescent glass popular among Jugendstil artists e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vase_6_Glasfabrik_Jo...
I think it's still possible to source this kind of glass as sheets – https://www.delphiglass.com/oceanside-compatible-glass-96-co... seems to come pretty close in appearance – but I can't seem to find anyone selling consumer products made out of it. (Unless they make replicas and sell them as "authentic Jugendstil ca. 1908")
jpgvm
Awesome, this is exactly what I was looking for but couldn't find the search terms for.
pxmpxm
but if that's true, how i can sell that thinly veiled capitalism=bad narrative
drdrek
I don't get the Capitalism bashing aspect of the article. You can find reinforced glassware, its just more expensive so you don't hear a lot about it. It's not planed obsolescence, its customer preference.
iamgopal
I make pumps that are 5 to 10 times expensive than Chinese pumps and 5 to 10 times durable, I sell 1/10 as much as Chinese pumps. This is restricting research in improving pump, instead all research goes in reducing the cost.
lostlogin
Doesn’t this represent equal market share with the Chinese in terms of revenue?
karaterobot
In this article, the author makes the claim that very hard glass could not have been invented under capitalism, because capitalists are too focused on things breaking and having to be replaced. Which is ridiculous for any number of reasons, as is the implication that products developed under the economic model of the GDR were typically durable and long-lasting. It seems to be common for people to be both confused about what capitalism and socialism are, and very confident about what they represent.
rkachowski
> It all started when I was browsing through some film developing chemicals at one of my preferred photo shops (Fotoimpex).
This must be a pretty old article, as Fotoimpex have renovated and frustratingly removed almost their entire storefront - you can't really browse their merchandise anymore. I've found I have to order through their website despite the store being 30 mins away.
fmajid
There's this ancient Roman story about unbreakable glass in Petronius' Satyricon:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology...
amai
The blog has more gems like this: https://digitalcosmonaut.com/the-worlds-tallest-jesus-statue...
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There was a recent kickstarter project from a German company for Glass bottles based on this technology:
https://www.soulbottles.de/en/ultraglass
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulkupfer/ultraglass-s...
Recent update:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulkupfer/ultraglass-s...
The research for this was done at the University of Bayreuth: https://www.glas.uni-bayreuth.de/en/projects/strongbottles/i...
German TV reported about the background here, 20:45 onwards:
https://www.3sat.de/wissen/nano/240315-sendung-epigenetik-ar...