Tamglass: First Probend™ in the UK

Date: 3 May 2004

Tamglass, a Glaston Technologies company, has successfully commissioned its first ProBend™ in the United Kingdom for European Glass Group.

ProBend™ represents the latest technological innovations in bending and toughening large glass panels required by designers and architects. This unique toughening and bending furnace using a combined bending and quenching section, has already been sold to several countries worldwide. European Glass Group is a family owned business, which has become one of the UK´s leading independent glass processors.

Now approaching a decade of trading, London based European Glass Group has maintained strong growth by anticipating and some cases, shaping the architectural glass market it serves. European Glass has also been working with Tamglass for many years developing the toughening of large glass panels in architectural glass market. With unique and extensive equipment, such as CNC waterjet processing, European Glass supports major architectural glass projects and provides glass processing services to the glass industry.

New zero-tooling technology for toughening and bending large glass sheets

ProBend™ developed by Tamglass, is a new concept for large size bending and toughening with no tooling. Quenching is performed by a combined bending and quenching section. The system installed in European Glass Group has the maximum glass size up to 2440 mm x 4200 mm. With steplessly adjustable bending radius from flat glass to the minimum of 1500mm it reflects the trend of increasing individual glass sizes. The system can be equipped with four different sections, three different types of bending sections and one flat for versatile production.

The ProBend™ concept requires no moulds or tooling, the shapes, sizes and thicknesses can be processed at high production speed with minimal changeover time – this fact enables the easy processing of one-off glass pieces with zero-tooling costs. In practice, changeover time is cut to minutes and is related to the time it takes to call up a new bending program from the computer’s memory. The result is a real tool in building design, which grants a free hand to use large bent and tempered products in economical ways, without limiting the visual effect in building design.

European Glass Group’s new factory at Park Royal in London, specialises in processing to customer specifications, jumbo-sized glass sheets for commercial buildings. The new factory includes the largest toughening furnace in the market, a BHF type manufactured by Tamglass, for flat glass, capable of toughening extra large glass panels up to 7 m x 3.3 m. European Glass Group has delivered processed glass to challenging projects such as Millennium Dome, Harrods Store, the Royal Opera House, city regeneration projects for London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Architects prefer new shapes in a large scale

Deliveries of special equipment for highly processed glass products, such as bending and toughening furnaces, have been growing. The development is indicating the market trend of today in using bent safety glass to create more visual designs for buildings. The use of bent and toughened glass in architecture has been increasing especially in Europe and Far East. The architects prefer using bent glass surfaces to create new external shapes for the buildings and improve the internal space and lighting.

“We want to challenge the standards requested by our customers by using the latest innovations to increase the manufacturing capability for various glass processing products. An example is that European Glass is one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of heat-soaked glass with four soaking lines capable of satisfying the demands of architects and developers who need the assurance of ‘explosion proof’ safety glass. The installation of the 7m x 3.3m is another prime example of the way in which European pre-empts the needs of the market”, Mick Johal from European Glass Group states.

”Investing in the technology to produce extra large toughened sheets means that architects have scope to use even bigger glazed areas. It is also possible to provide toughened glass solutions to a wider range of bespoke projects. For example the company was recently asked to quote for the 7m glass fins in a glass bridge, which prior to commissioning the new toughening furnace would have been impossible to achieve. The architectural trend in the UK and Europe increases the use of new shapes in glass facades. With further planned investment in plant and machinery, European Glass Group will continue to provide its customers with greater possibility to create new out looks for the commercial buildings” Mr Johal continues.

Glaston Technologies is the leading supplier of glass processing machinery, with a complete product range of pre-processing and safety glass machinery as well as tools. The division’s customer service network is the largest in the glass industry, with 230 customer service personnel. Glaston Technologies comprises Tamglass, the technology and market leader in safety glass machinery, and Z. Bavelloni, the leading manufacturer of pre-processing machinery for glass. Glaston Technologies is Kyro Group’s Glass and Stone Technology Division. Kyro Corporation is a solid and growth-oriented technology company, which is listed on the Helsinki Exchanges.

600450 Tamglass: First Probend™ in the UK glassonweb.com

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