What is a glass platen, and why use one on a 2×72 belt grinder?

A glass platen is a flat platen that has a layer of ceramic glass installed on its steel platen plate.  There are two main reasons why bladesmiths and metal creators choose glass platens.  First, glass platens will resist wear such as grooving and gouging much better than a steel platen plate alone.   Second, ceramic glass platens enable grinding operations to stay much cooler for longer compared to steel platen plates alone.

Glass-ceramic has good hardness together with a microstructure grain composition that makes it much more wear-resistant than steel and hardened steel.  This makes the glass last longer than steel in grinding work, while generating far less friction.  Less friction means less heat.  Additionally, glass ceramics have lower thermal conductivity than steel, so they are absorbing and radiating less heat than steel.

Static electricity build-up is a problem when using glass platens on a belt grinder.  Most importantly, extreme caution should be used when working with a glass platen because if the glass comes loose during grinding or experiences a significant shock it will explode into many, many sharp dangerous shards.

• The ceramic glass liner should be bonded to the steel platen plate of the flat platen.    We recommend using J-B Weld original cold-weld steel reinforced two-part epoxy.
• An extremely low thermal expansion coefficient means that this glass-ceramic liner plate will experience negligible linear expansion even when subject to temperatures as high as 1200 degrees F.
• This glass-ceramic material is resistant to thermal shock and has high mechanical strength.
• This ceramic glass is designed for high temperature environments such as fireplaces.
• See the video below from Fire Creek Forge which shows how to use this glass ceramic plate to install a glass platen.