Museum glass: before and after shots

[thinkJason]

Tired of reflections? I know I am. Check out what the right glass can do for you!

BEFORE

Here's your run-of-the-mill home depot glass:


Camera left:



Camera right:



AFTER

Here's what you can do with "museum glass," low UV transmission, low reflectivity:


Camera left:



Camera right:



Awesome, right? So Chris, the guy at a local shop scraps out appropriately sized pieces of museum glass from time to time, and normally charges $40/pane for 11x14". He said he'd be glad to ship scraps for a reasonable price. Here's his contact info:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/time-capsule-framing-denver

[daniel_reetz]

Incredible post. Thank you for the real-world examples.

When you hold that glass under light, and look at it from an angle, does it have a pink hue which changes colors? That means it is AR (antireflection) coated. That seems to be what I am seeing in your picture.

As you know, there are other kinds of non-glare glass which have a matte finish on one side, and a long time ago someone tested that here and had some real trouble with it.

$40/pane is very cheap for this kind of glass. I'm impressed at that low cost.

Edit: another thing to note - you can move the remaining bits of reflection from the image of the page by moving your lights further up.

[thinkJason]

When you hold that glass under light, and look at it from an angle, does it have a pink hue which changes colors? That means it is AR (antireflection) coated. That seems to be what I am seeing in your picture.

Yes. Actually, it's either pink or green, depending on the angle. The glass is coated on both sides.

[thinkJason]

I did note that the coating on the glass is not nearly as uniform as the coating on my camera filters. Given that camera filters are in the $100-$400 range for a 77mm circle, I'm not entirely surprised.

[rob]

Wow, that is an impressive difference. Thanks, Jason, the comparison is greatly appreciated. I might get a set of AR panes.

[Heelgrasper]

Great test.

Would be really useful with a comprehensive test of different types of glass since there's quite a few to choose from. And it's something where spending a little extra could make things a lot better but only tests can show exactly how much a difference there is.

[mfn]

I just went through this exercise earlier this morning. Non-glare glass is probably what you're looking for. Museum glass has low UV transmission which probably doesn't make much difference for a book scanner but it actually has more glare than non-glare glass. One other big problem with museum glass is that it requires a special cleaner. Windex will destroy it. On top of all that, non-glare glass is fairly cheap. I just bought two pieces, 11" x 13.75", for $12.43 each.

Mark

[DrCheap]

So, I have been doing a fair deal of research and reading on glass types and, setting aside acrylic, in the world of glass proper, three general categories emerged:

- Regular/plain : clear, cheap, ~8% reflection, can cause significant reflection of specific images
- Non-glare or "reflection-control": mid-range price, still ~8% light reflection but scatters/diffuses the reflection so you don't see reflections of specific images, but this can cause a loss of contrast and clarity.
- Reflection-free: very expensive (40-50$ per 11x14 pane), excellent clarity, 1-2% light reflection, maintains excellent contrast and clarity

TrueVue makes a very nice reflection-free glass, but it is very expensive, unless bought in bulk (in which case it is just a little bit expensive). However, I was reading that they recently began distributing "UltraVue" water-white reflection-free glass. It's clearer and truer color than most glass, 1% light reflection, excellent light transmission, and looks likely a little bit cheaper than museum or regular reflection-free glass. The only glitch is it only comes in 2mm, which seems awfully thin for our applications.

What do you all think? Is 3mm the lower limit for the 11x14 kit platen? If I do the Ultravue, I probably have to buy a bulk of it and have it cut into platen sheets, but I might do that anyway given the bulk to single-sheet cost difference (depending on cost of getting it cut).

[Gerard]

i'am using a 1,8mm for 300mmx360mm platen on

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=786

the platen is bending under force but makes no problems, if your glue the complete sides (distributes the force) and connect the sheets together with a clear glue (do not overdo it or you will loose the area near the spline)

if your are using the hackspace design it's even better,

before you work with glue and the museum, try it out on some cheep glass (e.g. this picture frames with a board of mdf and a glass sheet)

[elhyam]

This place shows 3 32x40" sheets of UltraVue glass for $152 which is certainly a whole lot cheaper than the TrueVue price you found (although I guess UltraVue is a TrueVue product?):

http://www.completeframers.com/

But that is kind of a bulk amount, as you say.