Glass has been part of human culture for over 3,000 years. It comes in many forms, as artwork, protection, or functional design. This amorphous solid, which exists in a state between liquid and solid, is so commonplace that we may forget it was once a luxury item, made by hand and sold based on the quality of the hand-polished panes.

But the windows you’re looking out of right now didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They were fabricated in a glassworks facility using modern machines and compressed air. One of these companies in Houston, Texas is fabricating glass with care, precision, and speed.

Customer Background

Advanced Glassworks, founded in 2023, uses compressed air to fabricate residential and commercial glass, like shower doors and storefront glass. This glassworks company is all about doing their best for the customer.

"We turn innovation into precision, crafting high-quality glass solutions that deliver lasting durability and performance," their mission statement reads.

Here’s how it works: a contractor or installer contacts them with what they need. Then they design it, get approval and produce the required glass to exact customer specifications using high-tech equipment.

Advanced Glassworks handles all the cutting, fabricating, polishing, and tempering. They also do custom glass for architectural installations. Once the piece is finished, the customer picks it up and installs it at the site.

Bege Magaji, one of the founders of the company, believes in great customer service in every part of his business while creating quality, precision glasswork.

"Advanced Glassworks is built on customer service and making sure that we take care of our customers and provide quality," Magaji said.

Using Compressed Air

When building Advanced Glassworks from the ground up, Magaji did not know how vital compressed air was to the glass fabrication industry.

"In every spec sheet, compressed air was on there with the specifications of the piping, the size of the pipes, the amount of air, the type of dryer and all you need," Magaji said.

Almost every facet of the Advanced Glassworks process uses compressed air. Glass is a delicate, heavy and expensive product, so relying on manpower alone can be risky and time consuming. Magaji took every opportunity to automate and utilize compressed air in the facility. Compressed air is used in 3 key areas:

1. Moving glass pieces around the facility
2. Operating drills that cut holes in the glass
3. Easily cutting glass to specifications

With all these machines requiring precision cutting to satisfy orders, it’s important to have the proper amount of air flowing throughout the facility. Too little pressure or air that isn’t dry enough can cause the machinery to misfire, moving the drill to the wrong location and ruining the glass cutting process.

If Advanced Glassworks’ compressors went down for a day, their process would stop almost immediately. A process that typically takes 10 minutes would take a full day, as they would have to cut and move all the glass manually. With an automated system, precision cutting is easy.

"If we do not have fast turnarounds, which is very critical to our customers, we're not going to be in business. So you can pretty much say without compressed air, there's no Advanced Glassworks," Magaji said.

The Compressed Air System

Advanced Glassworks' compressed air system includes:

1. Tank-mounted KI-30 oil-lubricated rotary screw air compressor
2. Hankison HPRN non-cycling refrigerated dryer
3. OBS125 oil/water condensation separator
4. Aluminum piping

A Tricky Installation

When setting up Advanced Glassworks in 2022, the founders coordinated a dance between getting the large manufacturing machines into the facility and having compressed air ready to run them for special training sessions before starting production.

These specialty glass manufacturing machines come from Italy and China, and a specialist engineer travels to the manufacturing facility to conduct trainings for a specific amount of time. The compressed air needs to be set up by then so the engineer can train the company in the specified timeframe.

Our sales representative in Houston, TX worked closely with Advanced Glassworks and the other contractors working on the facility. After coordinating the compressed air install with the plumbers and electricians, Advanced Glassworks set a date for everything to go online.