Plastic Surgeon Glass Repair Case Study - Gladedale Ventures

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Plastic Surgeon Case Study:

Gladedale Ventures Ltd, Quartermile Development Client: Sector:

Gladedale Ventures Ltd Construction: Residential / Retail

Repairs: Site:

Glass Repairs, Quartermile Development, Edinburgh

The Challenge The prestigious Quartermile Development is based in the heart of Edinburgh. Providing a new residential address for Scotland’s capital, the development boasts a cosmopolitan mix of luxury conversion and new build apartments, cafés and shops in a prime city centre location.

Gladedale Ventures Ltd were faced with a case of vandalism to a series of 4m x 2.5m plate glass panels.

The damaged glass panels had very bad scratches across them, caused by someone running a key or other sharp object along the glass. The deep scratches spanned across the full width of the glass on several panels.

The Solution Gladedale Ventures Ltd called in Plastic Surgeon, who after an initial assessment on site, decided that repair was a viable option. One of Plastic Surgeon’s trained glass finishers, who had recently completed the company’s rigorous glazing course, was selected to carry out the work. The training enables finishers to assess both the glass type they are dealing with, the severity of the damage and the best approach to dealing with it.

It must of course always be remembered when working with glass that in most forms it remains a fragile material, and in most instances the finisher will carry out a basic risk assessment regarding the best means of access; as well as of avoiding the risk of injury to others in the vicinity, through breakage or other accident.

Plastic Surgeon’s health and safety policy would prevent a finisher ever repairing glass working from a ladder, while stepladders will only be used at very low level, a few feet above the ground. In all other instances the operative will erect purpose designed, quick to assemble scaffolding generally carried in the vans, or organise other means of access – such as a cherry picker – in consultation with the client.

To carry out these repairs, the finisher used a variable speed precision grinder, able to rotate at velocities of up to 10,000 rpm, along with half a dozen different grades of abrasive disk. By varying the rate and ‘roughness’ of the intervention, the finisher was able to remove the deep scratches in the glass.

A key aspect of the skill involved in this first part of the glass repair process is to judge the size of the work area in order to ‘feather out’ the repair. This avoids the creation of a dished effect or any other visual distortion.

The finisher then used finer and finer diamond pastes applied with a felt pad on the grinder, until the reflectance and polish of the surface matched the untouched glass on the surrounding areas.

The Result Plastic Surgeon’s finisher successfully polished out all scratches saving the customer a bill of thousands of pounds in replacement costs.

Sustainable Repairs At the same time as providing clients with a comprehensive cosmetic repair service addressing virtually every type of product and substrate, Plastic Surgeon is also addressing important aspects of the sustainability agenda. For while , the company’s ethos of ‘repairing rather than replacing’ represents a saving IP ITof K S ’T reduces approximately £3 for every pound spent, this approach also significantly DON waste going to landfill and therefore helps cut a customer’s carbon footprint.

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T I FIX geon

r Uniquely, Plastic Surgeon has developed its VisibilITy software which ttranslates ic Su1 0000 s a l 4 P 5 1weight each finisher’s job report, sent from their palm pilot, into the equivalent 4 08utilise and other statistics on a data base that participating customers can for their own sustainability reporting.

Total Landfill Savings for this project:

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Call us today on 0845 141 0000

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Blue Waters House, Pottery Road, Bovey Tracey, Devon TQ13 9DS Tel: 0845 141 0000 Fax: 0845 143 0000 Email. priority@plastic-surgeon.co.uk www.plastic-surgeon.co.uk