Glass and Metal Fabrication

Steel frames with glass infill — doors, partitions, screens and guards.

Frame Profiles

The whole appeal of a steel-framed glass assembly is how little frame there is. Steel is stiff enough to hold a large pane in a section that aluminum or timber could not match, which is why the look exists at all.

Most of our frames are built from hollow section or from flat and angle bar fabricated into a profile, with the glass captured by a bead on one face. Sightlines in the range most people are after are achievable in steel; the same design in aluminum comes out visibly heavier.

Muntins — the internal bars that divide a pane into a grid — are the detail that carries the style. Fewer, thicker bars read industrial. More, thinner bars read Crittall or heritage. Both are straightforward to build; the decision is aesthetic, and worth making with a full-size drawing on the floor rather than from a photograph.

Glass Types and Safety Glazing

Glass in a partition, door or guard is not a free choice. Building code decides most of it.

Tempered — heat treated so it breaks into blunt granules. Required in doors, sidelights, low glazing and most locations where impact is credible.
Laminated — two panes bonded to an interlayer, so a break stays held together in the opening. Required for most overhead glazing and for guards where a fall is possible.
Heat-soaked tempered — tempered glass put through an additional cycle to force out panes that would fail spontaneously. Worth specifying on large or hard-to-replace panels.

Any glass acting as a guard on a balcony, stair or landing is governed by the BC Building Code and gets specified accordingly, not chosen for looks. We size and specify it as part of the fabrication and hand you the details for permit.

Structural Considerations

Glass is heavy, and the numbers surprise people. A single large pane can weigh more than the frame around it, and all of that load has to reach the structure through hinges, fixings and the wall or floor behind.

For doors, that means hinge count, hinge type and what the jamb is actually fixed to are decided before anything is cut. A steel-framed glass door hung on studs with no blocking will sag, and the sag shows first at the top latch corner.

For partitions and guards we look at deflection as much as strength. A panel that is structurally adequate but flexes underhand feels wrong, and clients read flex as a defect. We size sections to feel solid, not merely to pass.

Thermal movement matters too. Glass and steel expand at different rates, so the glass is always set on resilient blocks with clearance rather than fixed hard against the frame.

Typical Applications

The combinations we build most often:

Interior partitions and room dividers, single or double glazed
Steel-framed internal doors, pivot and hinged, single and paired
Shower screens and wet-room enclosures
Stair and landing guards with glass infill in a steel or stainless frame
Balcony and deck guards where the view is the point
Kitchen and pantry doors, and glazed cabinetry fronts
Feature screens and vestibules in commercial fit-outs

We fabricate the frame, source and specify the glass, and install as one package, so there is no gap between two trades blaming each other for a fit that is out by three millimetres.

Framed, Semi-Frameless or Frameless

Almost every glass-and-metal decision comes back to how much metal is allowed to show. Framed assemblies capture the glass on all four edges in a metal channel or a fabricated frame; they are the most forgiving of tolerance, the cheapest, and the most visible. Semi-frameless captures two edges, usually top and bottom or the posts only. Frameless holds the glass in a base shoe or at point fixings and shows almost no metal at all — it is the most expensive, the least forgiving, and the one that most often runs into an existing-conditions problem on site.

The metal is not decoration in any of these. It is what carries the load into the building, and the further the design moves towards frameless, the more work the remaining metal and its fixings have to do.

Who Supplies and Warrants the Glass

This matters more than most people expect. Glass is a manufactured product with its own supplier, its own certification and its own warranty. Metalwork is fabricated. Keeping the two responsibilities clear at quoting stage — who supplies the glass, who is responsible if a panel arrives with an edge chip, who covers a spontaneous breakage — avoids the most common argument on this type of job.

Glass type, thickness and any safety-glazing requirement are specified by the project’s designer or engineer, not chosen by a fabricator. Project documentation and contractor requirements can be provided as applicable.

Why Glass Is Always Measured Last

Glass is cut to a fixed size and cannot be trimmed on site. Metal can be adjusted; glass cannot. That single fact drives the whole sequence of a glass-and-metal job: the metalwork is fabricated and set first, the openings are measured after the frames are actually in position, and only then does the glass order go in. Ordering glass off a drawing rather than off the installed frame is the fastest route to a panel that does not fit and a lead time repeated from zero.

It also means glass jobs have two site visits rather than one, and a gap between them. Anyone building a schedule around a glass-and-metal element should plan for that gap rather than discover it.

Exterior Glass and Weather

Water has to be able to get out of a base shoe or a bottom channel — a detail that traps water will stain the metal and mark the glass edge
On the North Shore, wind-driven rain and salt air make the metal finish the weak point long before the glass is affected
Glass shows water spotting and residue far more than metal does, so exposed exterior glass is a maintenance commitment, not a maintenance-free one
Setting blocks and gaskets are consumables; they will need attention long before the frame does
Thermal movement in a long run of framed glass has to be allowed for in the metalwork, not absorbed by the glass

Cost Drivers

How much metal shows — frameless costs more than framed, every time
Panel size, because oversize panels move into specialist handling and specialist transport
Glass type and any coating, tint or low-iron requirement
Whether the substrate can take the fixings as-is or needs remedial work first
Whether the opening is square — an out-of-square opening either shows as a tapering gap or forces a framed solution

Where Glass and Metal Is the Wrong Combination

Where the primary requirement is privacy — a privacy screen in solid or perforated metal does that job better and for less
Where the assembly will be knocked, loaded or climbed on in service, such as a service yard or a loading area
Exposed hillside and waterfront sites where the cleaning access does not exist — the glass will be dirty most of the year
Very tight budgets, where a well-detailed metal railing gives a better result than a cheap frameless assembly
Retrofits into badly out-of-square existing openings, unless a framed approach is acceptable

Glass and Metal Questions We Get Asked

Can glass be added to an existing metal railing?

Sometimes, but it depends entirely on how the existing railing was built — post spacing, section size and how it is fixed to the structure all decide whether it can carry a glass infill. It is a site assessment, not a catalogue answer. See railings for how existing conditions are assessed.

What thickness of glass is used?

That is set by the project’s designer or engineer against the application and the applicable requirements, not chosen for aesthetic reasons. A fabricator builds to the specified glass rather than specifying it.

Does the metal or the glass fail first outdoors?

The finish on the metal, almost always — particularly at fixings, at cut edges and anywhere water sits. That is why the drainage detail and the finish specification matter more than the glass choice on exterior work.

Can the metal be matched to existing window frames?

Colour can usually be matched closely by powder coat. Profile and sightline are harder, because window systems are extruded products with shapes that are not economically reproducible in fabricated metal. Matching colour and accepting a different profile is the usual outcome.

For the product side of this work, including a catalogue of designs and how the job runs, see partitions we build.

Free in-house consultation

We come to you, measure the site, and talk through options and budget before you commit to anything. No charge, no obligation.

Call (778) 805-5333 or email sales@trussmetal.com

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