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element14 presents Forum What to do with 60+ glass bricks?!
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What to do with 60+ glass bricks?!

lorrainbow
lorrainbow over 2 years ago

Hey folks,

I saw these glass bricks on Facebook marketplace and just had to have them!
Facebook post selling 70 retro glass blocks/wall bricks with phot
It turned out the person selling them is a friend whose website I updated lately so she was happy to give them to me for free! There's about 68 of them. They're covered in expanding foam and paint. I've started to clean them up using a scraper and some nail polish remover for the tough bits.
A single cleaned glass brick with a banana on top for sale
But the question is - what to do with them!?! They're 19*19*8cm. They're hollow in the middle so not too heavy. 
I'm going to get 9 cleaned up and stack them in a grid and light up the centre one from different angles. I want to see what's the best way to light them up. And then.... ??
  • A giant wall for Tetris? 
  • An igloo? (Thanks for the idea mayermakes !)
Also, how do I stack them? And where! I don't want them to fall on anyone but I also don't want to permanently stick them together. So a frame of sorts? It feels like an outdoor display to me.. so how do I waterproof the electronics?
Any ideas are welcome! 
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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to dougw

    Another awesome idea. You could perhaps set that up as a 'hall of mirrors' type display comprised of smaller pedestal type units.

    If you do it as a single wall, then looking at around 150kg for 60 glass bricks alone. Not something you want falling over.

    You appear to get PVC extrusion these days to lock the bricks together with adhesive rather than the rebar and mortar technique of yesteryear, however they advise a maximum combination of 5x5 this way before a row of rebar.

    Another approach may be to go for a tilted back design rather than vertical. The blocks would then sit in a support frame pretty securely by gravity alone. If it was constructed out of T-slot extrusion, then could be dismantled for transportation and also be reconfigured into different structures for different use. 

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  • genebren
    genebren over 2 years ago

    Very cool find. My wife does mosaics with a wide variety of tiles/glass mounted on different substrates.  Here is a similar glass tile used as a substrate for a mosaic.  This piece is fitted with some LED fairy lights so that it glows with either sunlight (on a window sill) or at night.  Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but it might lend you some insights to different ways you can work with colors and/or lights to create something interesting.

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    "...61 of them would stack into a hollow 6x6 pyramid (it worked for the Louvre in Paris)..."

    I was thinking that with the hollow pyramid idea you could place lights / reflectors / diffusers within the hollow space rather than within the bricks themselves simplifying the construction. 

    Another take on this might be two 570mm wide by 1900mm high columns with lights boxed in-between to create some sort of a monolith type sculpture. 

    "The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it is full of addressable LEDs!"

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to lorrainbow

    "...If you lay them horizontally you could have yourself a light up dance floor..."

    Building a Glass Deck out of Glass Block
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlAMHT8q9M

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago

    Are you able to run a profile gauge over the edge of one of the bricks and post an outline of the profile?

    Doesn't look like they would be easy to separate at the join as they are hot fused together during the manufacture process.

    Glass Block - How It's Made
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rt-oXQWX2s

    However, a diamond cutting disk mounted in a table saw could make short work of it and open up some more creative options. 

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    image

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  • genebren
    genebren over 2 years ago in reply to genebren

    Oops! Here is the picture:

    image

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    If you want something a bit more glass-like, then here you go.

    image 

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    Not quite 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' but you get the general idea...

    image

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 2 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    image

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