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A few weeks ago, we were contacted by Malcolm Cross, Head of Product Design at Peter Symonds College, an institution we have been fortunate enough to work with on a number of projects. He enquired if our company would be interested providing glass for a new piece of furniture that a student was designing. The background to the story is as follows…

Malcolm’s family are all members of Winchester City Penguins Swimming club, or have been at some time. Knowing where he teaches, the club asked him if one of his students would perhaps be interested in designing a trophy cabinet for the swimming club. River Park leisure centre had kindly promised that their cafe could be used to house the installation. Relishing the challenge, Malcolm nominated one of his students, Daniel Loveridge to design and manufacture the piece as part of his A-Level Product Design coursework (it would contribute 25% of the final mark), and the college would provide materials and aid.

Several ideas were produced and discussed with the swimming club committee until the final design was agreed. The display case has been manufactured using traditional construction techniques, with glass additions. The look is contemporary, natural and built from sustainably sourced materials, which is something all involved felt was important.

At this point, Malcolm contacted us to ask if we would be interested in supplying the glass, in return we would be able to add a logo to the side panels. Because of the ongoing relationship we have with the college, it really was a ‘no-brainer’ to get involved.
Malcolm provided the measurements and the chosen six pieces were cut by Jerry McKinlay at the County Glass Trade Counter. 10mm has been used for the shelves and 6mm used for both the front and side panels.

The glass was then taken to our Toughening Plant, when Graham Diment’s team added it to their daily work. This process makes the glass five times stronger than non-toughened, and if it does break, the material shatters into small pieces with no sharp edges.

The final part of the process for us was the logos. Peter Symonds naturally wanted their logo on the side panel glass with some additional information including Daniels name. And for us, we chose to have the County Windows logo and ‘glass supplied by’ at the top of the panel. The best way to achieve this is by sandblasting the words onto the glass as it gives a great, opaque finish.

At County Glass, we have the Decorative Glass and Leading studio, which is really the creative hub of the company. Stuart Keal, who works in the department, took the task of producing the work.
The logos are either scanned into the computer or obtained in a jpeg or other graphic format. Where required, Stuart then digitally hand traces all the individual elements of the graphics to make sure that they are perfect reproductions. The final designs are printed onto a vinyl, which is attached to the glass. A razor is then used to pick out the parts that are to be blasted. The whole process is done by hand (see picture above).

The final stop on the trip is down to Andy Barnard, who runs our CNC Processing machine. He also takes care of the sand blaster, which is a largely automated piece of hardware. The piece is loaded, blasted then carefully cleaned, making it ready for the customer.

All the glass pieces have been delivered to Malcolm and Daniel, and I am pleased to report that they all fit perfectly and look great.
The final assembly of the cabinet is today, before all removable pieces are taken out and the whole unit transported to River Park. I’ll report back on this final installation when it takes place.

The various process and services that are mentioned in this blog are all available to our customers.
From decorative glass created from photos or sketches, to maybe a sandblasted glass name plaque for your home or business.

Anything you can imagine, please contact us and we can talk through the available processes and how we can create these pieces for you.