I have a 42" round table on which I want a glass top. I know the glass has to be tempered, but what about thickness? I’m know 3/8 is more than adequate, but is 1/4 too thin?
Is this a glass cover over a wooden tabletop, or is this the glass the tabletop itself? If this is just covering a wooden table, I think quarter-inch is sufficient. But not if this is a glass table. I’d suggest just asking at the glass shop. They should be able to advise you.
Unless you have a very impressive annealing kiln in your garage you are going to have to have this made anyway. The fine people at your local glass shop should know what thickness is appropriate when you make your order. When I need glass for a project I let the local experts decide what is necessary.
If this is just a cover to sit on an existing table top 1/4" is probably plenty. If it is replacing the table top I am not sure that 3/8" would be enough.
ninja’d1
It depends on the support. See here for an explanation: What glass thickness do I need for my table | Dulles Glass and Mirror
I wouldn’t use tempered glass, it can break too easily by dropping something on it just right. I think 3/8" or thicker plate is what you need.
It may also depend on how you plan to use the table.
We had a metal table with tempered glass top we kept outside on our patio year-round. One evening last summer I heard glass breaking close to the house. It turned out the tabletop had shattered.
There was nothing in the area that indicated it was struck by some projectile. I think that given the horrendous winter we in the Chicago area had suffered and the heat of the day the glass just reached its limit. I have no idea why it broke in the evening rather than when the temperature had peaked, or why that day – I believe we’d had hotter days earlier in the summer.
Not sure if this matters, but the glass was completely shattered into small nugget-like pieces, so it was some kind of safety glass.
If you plan to put the table somewhere where it will be subject to a wide range of temperatures you may need to take this into consideration in choosing the glass.
The glass is simply to protect the oak table top. It would have no structural importance. Based upon most comments, and not withstanding the tempered/non-tempered opinions, it sounds as though most think 1/4 would be ok.
Tempered glass does that. It’s heat-tempered, which creates tension in the sheet. When it breaks, it ALL breaks into granular nuggets instead of sharp shards like regular plate glass will.
And, since it’s going to be on a table, if it ever does break, it’s not that it’s going to break because someone went through it. So if you use regular glass those giant shards aren’t going to be falling on a arm or neck, they’ll just be sitting there on the table because someone set something down on it too hard. One thing I would recommended is that the edges are beveled/polished/ground in some way so they’re not sharp. I’m sure they’ll ask you about that since it’s for a table.
But, I’d probably just ask the glass company for their recommendations on both the thickness and tempered vs non-tempered.
I’m thinking you’re not going to want tempered glass on table since it’ll shatter easier.
Tempered glass is stronger I believe, less likely to break in general. Plus it has something of a fail-safe mechanism, it breaks into tiny chunks instead of big sharp shards.
A former roommate of mine left behind a coffee table whose tempered glass surface is supported by four uprights (total supporting surface area less than five square inches). Luckily those four support points align almost directly with the legs of a mini-fridge, so I’ve had this setup working nicely for about a month now. The thickness of the glass is 3/8 inch, and if the thickness were any less I probably wouldn’t have attempted to elevate a mini-fridge with the table, despite the alignment of the fridge legs with the table uprights.