The paperclip: prosaic, plebian, boring. Staples are even worse, plus they poke holes that will never heal. Here at BUNGCO we know you want to show your customers you are willing to go the extra mile for the sake of taste and class. For you: the glass paperclip. Twice as long and half as wide as a typical paperclip, the clear glass paperclip is made of shatterproof glass (we are not idiots!), optionally with the logo of your company laser etched. The glass paperclip is to the ordinary paper clip what stiletto heels are to sorel boots. Aesthetic and functional, the glass paper clip will hold your papers together in a classy way that adds, not detracts from the beauty of your stationery.
Because they are clear, the glass paper clips are hard to find if you set them down, and like a pair of heels will break if you ask too much of them. These aspects decrease the reuse potential, which in turn improves profitability.-- bungston, Feb 08 2010 Flowing glass at normal temperatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlassDepends on phase change transition temperature [csea, Feb 09 2010] Spray on nano glass http://www.thedaily...ive-you-lung-cancerTo prevent scratches? [bungston, Feb 09 2010] //we are not idiots!// [marked-for-tagline]-- FlyingToaster, Feb 08 2010 This sounds really beautiful. Are you sure your [bungston]? +++++-- blissmiss, Feb 08 2010 [bung] writes more pointless sillyness. I think: "I'd buy that".-- wagster, Feb 08 2010 this shatterproof glass, that is something i could take an interest in. How does it work?-- WcW, Feb 08 2010 oh who cares how they open! I'll take a dozen monogrammed with the slogan : We are not idiots! +-- xandram, Feb 08 2010 /How does it work?/
Well, thank you. As regards flexing, one should not demand calisthenics from the glass clip.-- bungston, Feb 08 2010 //Glass is pretty rigid.//
No, glass is moderately *stiff* (as indeed is steel), and very brittle.
The first problem is simply a matter of using thin enough glass wire, but it won't need to be much thinner than a regular paperclip, I think.
The second problem is a matter of preventing the initiation of cracks. This is routinely accomplished by heat-treating the glass (chilling the outside of it rapidly as it solidifies) in such a way that the outside (scratchable) surface is in compression, whilst the inside (non- scratchable, non-crack-initiatable) is in tension.
I'm not sure if tempering such thin glass wire is possible, but it probably is. An alternative would be to coat it with a thin protective film to prevent scratches (and hence cracking).
I work with fused silica capillary (basically glass), which is coated with a thin polyamide skin. The stuff is about half a millimetre in diameter, and behaves very much like spring steel - it would make wonderful paperclips if it were a little thicker and stiffer. If you remove the coating in a Bunsen flame, the capillary remains just as strong and bendable. But if you then touch the exposed silica (thereby microscopically scratching its surface), it becomes as fragile as you would expect.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 Oh, and I read your first line as "...prosaic, lesbian, boring." for some reason.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 I never thought about classifying inanimate objects as "lesbian". Now that I think about it, though, it's a very interesting philosophical subject. What qualities would make, for example, a broccoli inherently lesbian?-- DrWorm, Feb 08 2010 A lesbian object would be one which can connect to a similar one despite only having concave connections, so it would be, for example, a pair of sticky sockets. A plunger would be lesbian, because it has a concave sucker which can stick to another plunger. Post It notes are lesbian too.-- nineteenthly, Feb 08 2010 "shatter proof glass"
so you're describing a clear substance with moderate flexure and spring back(on the paper clip scale).
hence... plexiglass, or polycarbonate.
for the record glass is very hard, which does make it a good candidate for a paperclip if it wasn't for the fact that it's not elastic. If you cut glass on a waterjet you can make it into a coil spring-- metarinka, Feb 08 2010 //if it wasn't for the fact that it's not elastic.//
Actually, glass is more elastic than steel, if you mean its Young's modulus. Glass is typically about 70Gpa, whereas steel (typically) is 2-3 times stiffer.
If you mean elastic limit (as in extension before breakage or permanent deformation), then everything depends on the way the glass is treated and on the type of steel, but the materials are roughly equivalent in this respect too.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 yah I was referring to the elastic limit. really the issue is that glass won't undergo significant plastic deformation before breaking (something paper clips are subject to) and being amorphous in nature means crack propagation generally becomes catastrophic.
to properties that are easily fixed by using poly carbonate.-- metarinka, Feb 08 2010 OK, true.
On the other hand, a glass paperclip is a glass paperclip. A polycarbonate paperclip is just a plastic paperclip.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 Maybe one could use glass over a core of tangled polycarbonate thread with comparable optic properties. This should make a safetyglass like composite. It is a step away from purity, and that is always a slippery slope.-- bungston, Feb 08 2010 //you’d have to stop and pull it back out again, before it was too late.//
<snicker>
//plus they poke holes that will never heal//
I participated in a month long stapler skirmish that proved this statement to be incorrect.
As to the idea, I envisioned the clip to be more like a small rectangular shaped sheet of glass, framed by a sheet glass border, distached on the three non-upper sides ... like the functional portion of those harry potter bookmarks.-- MikeD, Feb 08 2010 I haven't got any glass microscope slides handy, but I think it would work like this:
Stack one glass slide on another. Use the kind with frosted ends, and have the frosted surfaces touching each other. Insert 3-4 sheets of paper between the slides, starting from the end opposite the frosting, and pushing in 5-10 mm or so. You now have a wedge-shaped space between the slides a few hundred microns wide at the wide end. Hang a small drop of cyanoacrylate (Krazy Glue) off the applicator, and touch it to the narrow end of the wedge- shaped space between the frosted surfaces of the slides. A small drop, so that, when glue wicks into the space between the slides, it only fills the narrow end of the wedge. Let dry, then remove the paper.
You will have to practice this a few times to get the right amount of glue in, so buy two boxes of glass slides, and plan on wasting the first.-- mouseposture, Feb 09 2010 The problem with this idea is that after a thousand years or so, the paper clip would end up at the bottom of the page.-- Ling, Feb 09 2010 //after a thousand years or so//
Not likely. Depends on the type of glass. See [link], search "flowing."-- csea, Feb 09 2010 //flowing// the misbelief that glass flows stems from inspection of ancient'ish glass windows being thicker at the bottom than at the top. In reality lazy glassworkers figured the client wouldn't get on a stepladder and check how thick it was at the top so they made it thinner.-- FlyingToaster, Feb 09 2010 I was thinking about the proposition that a clip could be made from a capillary tube, which would be strong as long as nothing touched it and produced a microscopic scratch. Linked is this nano glass stuff. Glass on glass is still glass, but maybe a coating of this stuff would act like the polyamide coating on capilalry tubes and protect the underlying clip from scratches.-- bungston, Feb 09 2010 Far better would be a paperclip that is some proportionate conglomeration of both rock and scissors.-- rcarty, Feb 09 2010 i think that this can be done with glass no problem, while brittle, glass can do this job, however some special processing would be required.
take glass fiber optics for example manufactured in a process of pulltrusion = (heated, extruded & stretched) the material is flexible and durable, rolled onto spools.
I suspect that you would have to plan for some process where a post formation heat treatment of some type will be applied, to make the resulting glass clip able to endure the required daily functional torsions
i will however morn the paperclip sculpture opportunities that metal clips furnish.
also nineteenthly i can accept that plungers are lesbian but what about magnetized objects?-- vfrackis, Feb 09 2010 I have always found that an problem of lesbian couplings F/F can be cured using a "gender bender" M/M connector. Since the type is not changed this is not a kludge in the typical sense but it should be approached with some caution as it defeats all the inherent safety of a gendered coupling.-- WcW, Feb 09 2010 F/F plus M/M equals... ABBA?-- DrWorm, Feb 09 2010 My paperclips regularly get used for non-paper-clipping uses. Many of those uses are contingent upon the malleability of the paperclip.
But I'll not complain about the lack of bendy-ness: I'll just demand a paperclip holder with a built-in butane Bunsen burner.
Because I can't sit at this desk for one more day without the ability to periodically engage in some recreational thermal vitroflexy...-- lurch, Feb 09 2010 All those other uses for steel paperclips that can't* be replaced by glass...opening a CD drive, cleaning ear wax, hanging calendars, key ring...it's endless.
On the other hand, the glass paperclip could be used for portable fibre optic guides and making a collection of tubular bells.
*presumably-- Ling, Feb 09 2010 Attractively written, too. [+]-- Pericles, Feb 09 2010 Screw the mechanics, I want some of these so badly it isn't even funny. [+][+][+][+]-- kaz, Feb 09 2010 [Ling], the package of glass paperclips could come with a selection of deformed ones specifically for the uses you suggest. Or, alternatively, a tiny handheld blowtorch, so you can re-shape your glass paperclips as desired.-- pocmloc, Feb 10 2010 "Every packet comes with a free blowtorch"
Sold.-- Ling, Feb 10 2010 Note to business travelers: Airport security will go nuts when they see little pieces of glass in your bags.-- luxlucet, Feb 10 2010 your no terrorist your bullsit unless you can take ove a plane with a glass paperclip-- vfrackis, Feb 11 2010 random, halfbakery