Clearview National November 2015 - Issue 168 | Page 78
glass&sealedunits
Safeguarding
Artifacts
»»How do you best display and
safeguard rare artifacts, many of which have
been resting at the bottom of the sea for
centuries? This was not a hypothetical question,
but rather a real challenge facing the Arab
World Institute, or l’Institut du Monde Arabe,
in Paris.
Guardian Industries’ Glass Group in Europe,
a leading supplier of high-quality commercial,
residential and interior glass products gave
the institute the clarity it needed. Literally.
Guardian agreed to provide its double-sided,
anti-reflective Clarity™ glass for use in the
display cases for “Osiris, Egypt’s Sunken
Mysteries”, a traveling exhibition of rare
Egyptian artifacts.
During recent underwater excavations
in Egypt’s Nile River delta, the nonprofit
European Institute for Underwater
Archaeology (or IEASM, for Institut Européen
d’Archéologie Sous-Marine) recovered some
amazing historical items related to the Egyptian
god Osiris.
Organisers then combined those rare
objects with 40 or so splendid exhibits on loan
from the museums of Cairo and Alexandria,
to put together a unique traveling exhibition,
which started in Paris on September 8 and will
run until January 31 2016.
Guardian supplied some 200 square metres
of the Clarity specialty glass that has been
installed at the exhibition site. Guardian Clarity
is created using the most advanced magnetron
sputtering glass coating technology. Its residual
reflection colour is a soft neutral blue, which,
in combination with Guardian UltraClear™
substrate, allows it to provide maximum
transparency while eliminating unwanted
reflection and glare.
Visit www.guardian.com
Around the World Performance
»»Early September saw
the Super Spacer® pass a gigantic
one gigametre – that’s one billion
metres, equal to 25 times around
the world.
This phenomenal figure shows
the enormous success of the warm
edge technology developed by
Edgetech which is now being
sold to more than 80 countries
worldwide in the most extreme
conditions from Alaska to
Dubai.
Since Super Spacer started
production 26 years ago, a
lot has changed. It was first
extruded in the corner of Lauren
Manufacturing, Edgetech’s owner
before it was acquired by building
giant Quanex Building Products
in 2011. Today, there are 16
extruders with manufacturing
space totalling more than
500,000 square feet, and the
original Cambridge plant in Ohio
is the world’s largest warm edge
manufacturing site.
“Milestones of this magnitude
demonstrate the importance that
Super Spacer has played not just
in the UK market but around
the world,” says Andy Jones,
managing director of Edgetech
UK, a Quanex Company. “True
market leaders drive markets
forward and Edgetech is no
different. We’ve helped develop
the warm edge market and in
many countries warm edge is
now the norm rather than the
exception. Customers worldwide
have come to expect the highest
quality, most durable products
backed up by our technical
services teams and our award
winning marketing programs.”
Edgetech now has three spacer
manufacturing facilities located
in the USA, UK and Germany
employing more than 450 people.
78 » N OV 2015 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
Between the sites in excess of
100,000,000 metres of Super
Spacer is manufactured each year,
the equivalent to one house fitted
with IGUs every five seconds.
With its additional range of
spacer products using raw
materials such silicone, EPDM,
plastic and butyl, Quanex
serves not only the residential
window market but als o solar,
refrigeration, automobile
and commercial fenestration
markets. This takes annual
production numbers to more than
300,000,000 metres.