To smoke or not to smoke?

[jedimason]

I'm building a cocktail table and can't decide whether to have clear or smoked glass.  What do you guys think?  What looks best for a cocktail cabinet?  Pro's and con's?

Thanks for the help.

-Jedimason

[OSCAR]

I have clear tempered glass on my cocktail.  That would probably be best if you are going to have a graphic underlay, the smoked glass will probably mute the colors on the graphic a little.  I have an instruction card under the smoked plexi on my upright, and it is a little difficult to read.

If you aren't planning on a graphic underlay, then I would say go with smoked glass.  It just makes the screen look better, IMO.  If I had it to do over again, I would use smoked glass on my cocktail since I don't have any graphics under the glass.

[creatine28]

I used clear tempered glass.

What I did with mine was,  I routered a small amount away from around the inner wood frame of my top and set a small square piece of smoked plexi glass over the screen.  It came out great and doesn't affect the underlay art at all.


I bascially got a piece of smoked plexi glass that is the size of my screen and set right over the screen.  The routered edge of the inner frame of the cocktail top allows the plexi to sit flush with the top and still be able to set the cocktail glass over it.

Hope that makes sense?  Almost time to go home from work, so I'm a little tired!

[ButeLegz]

I bascially got a piece of smoked plexi glass that is the size of my screen and set right over the screen.  The routered edge of the inner frame of the cocktail top allows the plexi to sit flush with the top and still be able to set the cocktail glass over it.

That's pretty much what I've done with mine too. Except without access to a router I glued small peices of a clear cd to the underside of the lid to hold the smoked plexi flush. Bummy I know, but effective. It's also pretty much the way it was done originally... on the cocktails I've seen here anyway (Hankin, Taitio...) - the routing that is, not my crunk cd method.

[Tilzs]

I used smoked, it looks great. I don't have an underlay however

[Sprucemoose]

Used smoked to hide a slight burn in on a used monitor that I bought.  Works well.  

I guess it depends on your needs

[Brax]

I used smoked, tempered glass on my cocktail as well and you'd be surprised at how little it impedes the view of an overlay..... Mine is a fairly dark tint and the colours are perfectly bright. You can hardly tell it's tinted when looking at the overlay. Maybe small text would be harder to read but mine doesn't seem like it would be.