GANA held many meetings as part of Glass Week in Las Vegas, inlcuding the Decorative Division meeting on Saturday morning.The Glass Association of North America’s (GANA) Decorative Division was hard at work when it met last Saturday as part of the annual Glass Week meeting. The event was held at the Paris Las Vegas where Decorative members focused on a number of documents and resources for the industry.
During the Product Color and Durability Subcommittee meeting members discussed work that is being done on a list of color and appearance properties that it is developing. This includes a glossary of terms, which subcommittee chair Jeff Nixon of Glass Coatings and Concepts LLC explained should describe the properties of the glass rather than the product itself. For example, the term “dichroic” was recently added to the list. Greg Saroka with Goldray suggested the term “dichroism” instead as it better describes the properties of dichroic glass. A number of other suggested changes were discussed and the group is now working to revise the document so it can next go to the Decorative Technical Committee for review.In addition, the subcommittee is working on a second list on product durability properties.
Matthew Tangeman of Custom Glass Machinery chaired the Digital Printing on Glass Task Group and provided an update on his group’s work in developing a “how-to” case study on digital printing on glass. This, he explained, will serve as a general guideline for digitally printing on flat glass.
Given that digitally printed glass is still a relatively new technology in North America, there was a bit of discussion about the direction this group should be going with the document once it’s completed. Urmilla Sowell, GANA technical director, suggested that once it’s completed and balloted it be added as a section in the already published Guidelines for Screenprinting on Glass.
Tangeman added, “This [technology] is new enough we need to look at selling, processing it, ordering it, proofing it … the proofing process is extremely different than with screenprinted glass. We need to let people know how this is different compared to other fabrication technologies.” He added that this should include all digital imaging on glass, whether direct to glass or on interlayer material, etc.
Ultimately, the group decided to remain a task group and to continue working on the document.
During the Technical Committee meeting, Saroka noted that Kris Vockler with ICD High Performance Coatings will now be chairing a new standards subcommittee, which will work on developing standards that pertain to decorative glass. A Recyclability of Decorative Glass Products Task Group was formed as well.
In closing the division meeting, Vockler, who has chaired the group since its start in 2006, passed the torch on to Marc Deschamps of Walker.
Incoming chair Deschamps encouraged everyone to get involved in the many different groups and task groups within the division.
“We have some fantastic stuff we’re working on, but we need good people to get involved.”
The Decorative Division will hold its next meeting during the GANA Fall Conference.
