According to Wayne Neyens (in the Pinball Compendium 1930s to 1960s http://www.schifferbooks.com/the-pinball-compendium-1930s-1960s-1398.html )
the change was made in 1964 after his daughter was cut when playing on top of a machine and the glass broke.

You can bet before I get my Gigi operational again I'll make sure I have tempered glass in it.

I've bought more than a few games that had plate glass installed. Obviously, I replaced those.

Sometimes the glass simply gets replaced by an owner at some point without them realizing what type of glass should actually be used.

There is sometimes a slight tint to tempered glass.

The edges of temptered should be polished and smooth. The edges of plate glass might be a little rough.

If you have polarized sunglasses, you can sometimes see dark shadowy lines on tempered glass.

It might just be me, but when handling tempered and plate glass, they seem to each give off a slightly different sound when knocked.

I have invisiglass from JJP- I'm assuming that's all tempered right?

Yes

Usually you see ground edges, but it's not required.

Tempered glass is a must and regular glass can be very dangerous, that being said the term skinned cracked me up. A skinned elbow is something your Mom gave you a kiss for when you were 5. In this story potential injury seem disproportionate to the danger expressed.

I'm not sure if this really works, but might be worth experimenting.

http://glass-fish-tanks.com/how-to-tell-if-your-fish-tank-is-tempered-glass/

Is it safe to assume that all machines from 1990 forward came from the factory with tempered glass?

The edges aren't a dead giveaway. You can have plate with a polished edge or tempered with unpolished edges, as these are options but polished edges on tempered seems to be the norm.

If you smack the edge with a hammer, you will instantly know if you have plate glass or if you HAD tempered glass

Factory? Yes.. problem is unless you've known the owner of the game for the last 25 years... you don't know what's happened with it.

The polarized lighting and edges usually give you piece of mind. But edges are not definitive.

I have a funny story about non tempered glass on a pin. I was at Joystix for the first time ever. For those that don't know, Joystix sells games but twice a month you can pay to play the games from 9 till 2 in the morning. I was Playing a TOM and this gorgeous young thing with the sweetest set of girls you could imagine wanted to play the game. I asker her if she wanted to play doubles and she said OK. When it was her turn I just moved over to the next pin and pretended to watch her game when I was really enjoying the view of the girls. I guess I leaned too hard and the glass broke into a million daggers and I fell into the game. It cut the living shit out of my elbows and they were bleeding all over the game and myself. There of course was no way of NOT looking stupid after that. To make it worse the chick went and told on me. Charlie didn't know me at the time and gave me some bullshit about not charging me for the glass that I broke. I didn't say anything about the fact that the game should have had tempered glass and I could sue him for getting injured at his place. I just wrapped myself up and bled all the way home. But I can still remember the girls.

plate glass is a lot weaker than Tempered. Unless you have hot or cold hands, or ting the edges. Then the tempered is fragile as all shit.

Hey that's great I'm sure she was thrilled to have a gross old dude staring at her tits (so thrilled that she immediately ratted you out when you broke the glass). It is so weird to me that you would objectify and creep out a young woman and think it is cool to brag about that? That's one of the saddest, most pathetic posts I've ever read on here. I feel bad for you.

If anyone ever wonders what women are talking about when they say they don't feel welcome here on Pinside or in the Pinball hobby in general, look no further than this post.

well-that-escalated-jmg8n6 (resized).jpg

maybe he's not gross and old and/or maybe she's into that sort of thing? Just because you look at a girls boobs, isn't an automatic turn off. Plenty want you to look and entice you by looking, trying to get your attention. And enjoy getting the attention. Hence, why some have them hanging practically out a lot of the time. They know the attention they get and flaunt it.

Don't you know that it's wrong for ugly people to look at the attractive ones?

pezpunk is always looking to be offended, especially about women. It's old.

First five minutes of having my Gottlieb Skipper in my basement, it was in a tight space so I tried to pull the glass up just a hair to get it over an obstacle so I could slide it out of the game and it broke a big chunk of a corner off in the back. Sure made it easy to tell that it was plate glass. Obviously has a tempered piece of glass in it now. Proper.

My house has a fireplace that the previous owners installed a wood burning stove insert into.
First time I lit it, I found out that the glass in the stove door had been replaced with tempered but non high-heat glass.
Lit the fire, closed the door, and POW. At least it shattered into a million little pieces instead of several large ones.
Still finding tiny glass cubes near the fireplace.

I know, right? My wife gets hit on in all kinds of places. It's almost irritating...almost..

I think the best one was the guy that talked shit about me to my wife, not realizing who she was. He clearly didn't know we were married, she didn't get his name, so I went up and talked to the guy. Total creeper. Haven't ever seen him at that location again.

it's wrong for anyone to be a creepy jerk, and even sadder to brag about it. there's a difference between "looking at" a person and leering so hard at a girl's chest that you fall through a pinball machine.

believe it or not most people prefer to be treated like actual people, not a walking pair of tits. if someone walks up to a pinball machine, the default assumption should be that she is there to PLAY PINBALL, not to sexually gratify a stranger.

the truth is there are a lot of women into pinball who either won't participate in this forum, participate very carefully or mainly in specific subforums, or quickly get annoyed and leave in disgust. if they say anything, they get attacked and berated and told that there is no sexism and it's all in their head.

all i'm doing is pointing out a prime example of a guy bragging on Pinside about acting like a gross creep towards young women, in case anyone wants to maintain the fantasy that women are welcome here as actual people and not merely eye candy.

From that site...didn't realize tempered glass has such powers as to prevent my hands from moving! No wonder pinball is hard it's the glass I tell you!

"If you put your hand in front of the fish tank which is made of tempered glass, then whilst viewing through the polarized glasses then you should not be able to use your hands due to reduction of reflected light."

Well it was about 10 years ago and I was in better shape than most people 10 years or more younger. I could bench 350 and squat 450. It wasn't like I was standing there drooling over her and staring obviously at her tits either, we were carrying on a conversation. I was checking her out of course but I do have some tact. Its a funny story to most but if I remember correctly you are one of those Social Justice Warriors who just loves to get offended over a cause that doesn't concern him and that no one asked him to be so of course you wouldn't find it funny. As for now, I am just an old guy who needs to get back into the gym.

Kudos to you for saying something Pezpunk. And kudos to zr11990 for the story. If no one objects how would you know it's objectionable? What's right and wrong is a conversation that should keep happening as long as people exist. One person's opinion is only a data point. If you regularly have people tell you change behavior x then you probably should figure out why.

best pinside thread ever.

I'm glad the OP didn't get hurt, but I wonder... Do you often lean on a game's glass? I don't think I have ever leaned on the glass, it just wouldn't feel natural.

Yep. Pez will catch on sooner or later.

One episode of the Coinbox Pinball podcast they mentioned seeing someone let their kid run across the glass on all the games in a row. I think Chris had the bartender go tell the lady that was not allowed. I don't remember which episode but it was a long time ago.
http://coinbox.libsyn.com/

How many of you have cats that sit on the head of you pin and jump down with a thunk. I'm thinking regular glass would shatter. I also think regular glass would shatter when a ball jumped up and hit it, say as in Whitwater. Crash

Quite often. Tempered glass when installed is super tough. AS I've said before I've only every seen 1 glass shatter from hitting it or the lockdown bar.

I understand your point. I'm just saying, you seem to portray everyone that glances at someone is this huge nasty looking degenerate, just hunched over drooling on the floor like a cave troll. You can naturally glance without even being seen if your slick about it.

I lean on mine all the time, and actually kneeled and sat on it sometime when doing alot of work in the backbox.

Another year of Pez outrage/thread fucking Can't blame one for trying to get their beliefs across

The glass is thick so it's quite strong... which is why people don't realize it's not tempered. It always seems to be weight.. or slams.. that break them.

Very first pin I bought, it was a JD I purchased on Ebay from BarryWNJ. It finally arrived and I was so excited. I literally wouldn't have even known how to take the glass off at this point. The game arrived with a cardboard shroud over the head. It was folded down on the cabinet. I lifted the head and when I did a wad of 6 pinballs crashed through my playfield glass.

Someone had put the balls on top of the head, slid cardboard sleeve on then folded head down. Might not have been terrible, but the glass was thin plate and it broke into dangerous large shards. It was also a rude introduction to pinball for my girlfriend (and me to a degree), since my first week playing was with no glass, lol. Anyway, there was tons of shit wrong with that pin, but I learned alot about repair and who not to buy from on Ebay.

I normally don't say much but, I don't think I've ever read a thread that Pez commented in that didn't immediately go south.