By the way, they have also approved a paper called "Characterisation of the Scratch Resistance of Annealed and Tempered Architectural Glass", by Mr. Sebastian Schula, TU Darmstadt - which should be of particular interest to anyone who uses a scraper.

If you're wondering how prestigious an event GPD is, check out the GPD program
www.gpd.fi/Global/GPD/Finland/Finland%202011/GPD2011-FP-screen.pdf 
- or visit the GPD website - www.gpd.fi

In house monitoring has been part of my dialog with fabricators dating back at least to 2005. During a seminar at the IWCA convention that year I asked a fabricator if they used their own scrapers to check their glass for fabricating debris defects after cleaning a furnace. The answer at the time was "no."
In an April 2005 article about that convention seminar, Glass Magazine reported that one of the fabricators said he did check occasionally with a credit card, and did sometimes find problems. Since then very little has been published in US glass industry media about the fabricators' role in minimizing the fabricating debris problem.

GPD is based overseas and actively promotes their dedication to "transparency, trust and objectivity". GPD represents a very transparent means of communication with the glass industry about tempered glass quality - the information is offered and accepted with no expectation of compromise or negotiation.

Here is the text of the abstract submitted;
"Because the condition of ceramic rollers is directly associated with glass surface quality, and the condition of rollers is directly affected by proper glass washing to thoroughly remove fabricating debris, an ongoing program of testing roller side surface quality would be of benefit to any horizontal tempering operation. The author proposes a simple surface quality test for fabricators to predict the performance of uncoated tempered glass during future cleaning.
This test employs a common shop microscope to observe the result of cleaning of uncoated glass with standard metal razors, such as those historically used by glazers, fabricators, and cleaners."

It will be an honor to represent the window cleaning industry once again. I'd like to thank the Association of United Window Cleaners (AUWC) and many individual window cleaners who've already offered their support.
To learn more about this project, and about the tempered glass quality issue,  please visit my www.scratched-glass.net  site.