Tempered Glass Tabletop – Safe dimensions for a given base

glasstable

Sorry for the confusing title. We have a circular table (an old etched wheel) that is 3ft in diameter. It also has 4 rubber spacers along the diameter. I want to get a tempered glass tabletop for it. Our old one broke when someone placed a hot dish on it. The old glass had around 3ft 6inch diameter and about quarter of an inch thick.

My question is this:
Would a 12mm thich, 4ft diameter tempered glass tabletop be safe?

Our table would end up having a 6 inch glass ring around our current table. Would that be safe for dining purposes?

Here is a photo of the table and a photo of the rubber stoppers.

table

rubber stoppers

Best Answer

If you use only four support points, your glass top is actually sitting on a square about 2.12 feet on each side. So your overhang for a 4 foot circle is about 11 on each side.

square in circles

Tempered glass is very strong (note that annealed or hardened glass is also strong, but much less so than tempered). This calculator suggests that a 1/2" tempered glass shelf 11" x 25" supported at the ends would withstand a weight of over 600 lbs. The pressure on your table edge is somewhat different, since it is supported only along one edge, but that edge is attached to the rest of the top. It sounds as if there is little danger of the unsupported edge breaking off.

The bigger risk is tipping. If someone leaned on the edge of the top in between two of the support points, you have a lever of about 1 foot lifting three fee of tabletop. The top would be quite heavy (maybe 80+ lbs.) and would take a lot of pressure to tip. But it is quite possible, say if someone sat on the edge.

Consider adding several more support points around the edge (at least 4 more). This would increase the supported area to nearly 3 feet, and reduce the unsupported section to just over 6 inches.