Building Tinted Glass Door for Audio Rack

[thoff]

A couple years ago I built my own audio rack modeled after the salamander designs rack. Reference the first pic to see what I built. I always intended to build a door with tinted glass but I keep putting it off because I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted or how to do it. The door would be for the bottom of the rack covering the bottom two shelves.

I was in Best Buy recently and I saw a tinted glass door that I really liked and want to emulate for the door on my rack. But I need to figure out how to build it. I attached some pics of this door. Seems like if I build a simple frame to the size of my rack, affix tinted glass of the appropriate size to it, put in hinges and I should be good to go. But I've never built a frame like that, and I have no idea how to attach the glass.

Thoughts?

[audiobill]

Google glass hinges, and have a glass shop cut glass with rounded edges.

[petew]

There are a few types of hinges. The easiest uses a set screw to clamp onto the glass.



You'll want to order tempered safety glass from a glass shop. Go to a shop that does shower doors and they can order the glass for you. You'll need to give them exact sizes, as the glass needs to be cut prior to heat treating.

Request polished edges - otherwise the sharp edges will be knocked off with a belt sander but the edge will be rough. The glass shop should have samples of the edgework that their supplier can do.

Also request "no logo". Tempered glass gets marked with a ceramic ink stamp before it's put through the furnace so the building inspector can be sure it's heat treated. The ceramic fuses with the glass when it's cooked to make a permanent label.

You should order 1/4" thick glass. Gray or bronze tint is readily available that block about 30% of visible light. Graylite 14 is a PPG glass that may be in stock and will block 86% of visible light for the darth vader black look.  Don't use laminated or coated glass since those block some of the light spectrum that may affect your remote controls.    

I'm in the glass biz - wholesale cost for the glass is about $6 per square foot. Edge polishing will run about $0.40 per lineal inch. Expect to pay about twice that at retail.

[petew]

Here's a strike plate that works with a magnetic touch latch
woodworker.com/chrome-strike-and-pull-mssu-210-002.asp?search=touch%20latch&searchmode=2

[klinemj]

Whenever I want to do things like this, I go to my local glass shop and look at their showroom to get idea. You could even use frameless glass. The glass shops have a wide variety of hinges and closure mechanisms that affix directly to the glass. I used some on a custom shower door and a custom in-wall china cabinet.

The good folks at Economy Glass in Cincy have helped me on several projects ranging from doors to shelves to the little smoked glass windows on my home built amps.

Mark