Glass windows have become more and more important to homebuild- ers. This is a typical cottage style window configuration.


glass where you can see out but they can’t see in during daylight hours. Frits are images painted in ceramic and sometimes fused


with the glass. Today we have ceramic frit paint comprised of very tiny glass particles which is applied using silk screening. The technique can be used decoratively, to diffuse light, and even as insulation. Glass has also become an important building material with


far out homes made entirely transparent or 90 percent trans- parent. The glass blocks so trendy a dozen or so years ago are now being manufactured as pavers and used to add interest to the floors of deck or embedded in a driveway or patio. Some- times they have lighting installed. A creative pathway can be made by buying bottles bottoms


up in sand. Speaking of bottles, using them as a building material has long been practiced although it is said that the first bottle house was constructed in Nevada by one William F. Peck, who used 10,000 empty J. Hostetter stomach bitters bottles as his material. Stomach bitters are 48 per cent alcohol. When it comes to glass as a building material, it appears the


sky is the limit. And if you have way too much time on your hands, you can always build the whole house using your cast off bottles. . . . .


Taken to the extreme, this garden glasshouse can feel like living outdoors. What is glass? Liquid, solid or? Glass by definition, is any non-crystalline solid that


becomes soft near its melting point and brittle near its freezing point. It is not a liquid in spite of a once widely held belief that was started because old glass was thicker at its bottom than its top. The theory was that the glass slowly flowed over time – this has since been shown to be false. Modern glass is the same thickness all the way across and it does not change. Another reason for the assumption that glass is a


liquid is that it does not have the crystalline structure associated with most solids. However, there are many solids that do not crystallize: wood, a brick, etc. Most glass comes from silicate, or quartz mostly


found in silica sand, but there are natural types of sili- cate glass such as moldavite, a green glass that might be formed with the impact of a meteorite for example. Obsidian is volcanic silicate glass. Uranium glass contains uranium oxide which will


show fluorescent under ultraviolet light. There is now a whole list of man-made glasses.


Queluz National Palace in Lisbon Portugal illlustrates the use of glass in the 18th century.


www.localgardener.net


Armorial Hall in the 18th century Russian Winter Palace was illuminated by giant windows.


Summer 2014 • 33


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40