Textured glass is traditionally formed, whether by hand or mass production, by heating a sheet of glass to temperatures of up 1000° C. or higher and compressing the heated glass sheet between a mould having a textured surface thereon. In this way, texture on the textured surface is transferred to the heated glass sheet. Conventional textured glass is typically 3 to 4 mm thick and the maximum thickness is typically 12 mm, subject to complexity of the design. Appreciably, this process is extremely energy and time consuming due to the high temperatures and pressures involved. Resolution of the applied texture is also limited due to limited conformability of the heated glass sheet to take the shape of the mould, resulting in fine details being unable to be transferred or retained by the glass sheet. Reproducibility or consistency between multiple textured glass sheets is also lacking as textured glass is often handmade, resulting in variations arising between each textured glass sheet that is formed. Colour consistency is also an issue due to colours like red being affected by the curing process when applied to glass.
In other processes to create a textured and/or coloured effect on glass, ceramic frit ink may be screen printed, roller coated onto a sheet of glass, or spray painted and fused onto the surface using a toughening or heat strengthening process. However, such processes also involve high energy due to the high temperature involved in the curing process. Furthermore, resolution of the coloured effect using such processes can typically reach only 360×360 dpi at best by using digital ceramic frit printing.
Appreciably, the currently available methods to produce a textured effect on glass as mentioned above are laborious, costly and time consuming, while being able to produce only limited variations in design as well as limited thickness of the glass. The current methods are also unable to match the direction of market trend that is moving towards personalisation of designs.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds