By the end, Oceanside has a glass tile product with a strength upwards of 2,500 pounds per square inch and an easy pass in a freeze/thaw test. Depending on the thickness of a piece, the annealing process can take two to four hours to complete. As the glass moves through the lehr, it’s slowly cooled, removing internal stresses created as glass is fired, cast, and cooled. The glass pieces are pulled slowly through a lehr, a giant furnace with multiple chambers that decrease in temperature. Oceanside’s annealing process gives its glass tiles the ability to withstand extreme temperature changes. “Most products can’t go into that environment because they can’t handle that kind of ambient temperature change,” Moiso says. Moments later, a splash of water could cool the tile to 60 or 70 degrees in seconds. Under an Arizona sun, poolside glass tiles might reach upwards of 200 degrees. In Buffalo, New York, a glass water feature would freeze. Across such a vast geographic expanse, Oceanside must also make sure its glass can stand up to major differences in climates and weather. The tiles fully line restaurant walls and water features in New York and luxury pools at Cabo San Lucas resorts. Today you’ll find Oceanside glass all over the continent. “When we won the contract, we had to invent a way to make a rustic edge, 1-inch mosaic to match the original Italian glass as well as a way to sheet the mosaic.” Oceanside’s still-active Tessera Collection and its sustainably minded paper mounting method were born. “At the time, we were able to make a through-body cobalt colored tile that matched the existing Roman Pool, but we were only doing it in larger pieces,” Moiso says. The Hearst Castle contract was the first of Oceanside’s many commercial projects, and the challenge lit a fire for innovation within the company. When light hits the water just right, the pool appears to glow from the bottom up. In 1995 Oceanside was chosen for the difficult task of providing glass to restore the indoor Roman Pool, where water shimmers and reflects off thousands of 1-inch glass tiles. When renovators at Hearst Castle, the former home of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst and current National Historic Landmark on the Central California Coast, needed to match an existing vibrant blue, they turned to Oceanside. “You can’t duplicate that look,” Moiso says. The technique offers consistent color and a reflective quality that rates high with designers and architects. The manufacturer bakes color directly into its glass using a variety of chemical mixes instead of relying on colored paint or back adhesives to add hues to a colorless glass tile. Oceanside is one of the few North American companies that manufactures its glass with through-body color.
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