Glass is extremely odd stuff in material science sense - effectively a
pretty unstable supercooled liquid - and old "plate" glass in particular
has a much shorter life than most people expect.  The "float" process for
producing large sheets of glass has probably not been around long enough
to know whether this will be better. Strengthening processes such as heat
annealing ("toughened glass" - old-style motor vehicle screens and
windows) and laminated glass ("bandit glass", "bullet-proof" glass etc.
increase significantly the risk of catastrophic shattering and
inter-lamellar cracking respectively when the glass finally fails.

Any re-use of glass more than a few years' old should set alarm bells
ringing: re-cutting this for display shelves sounds a very risky idea even
well away from seismic zones.

Patrick Boylan

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> > Is there any reason that glass should not be used as shelving in
> > artifact storage areas? (IJ (J We are looking at recycling glass from old
> > "candy store" cases. (IJ (J Any thoughts much appreciated.