I must have missed the gist of the original post but here's some more
useless info...
If the glass plates are dead smooth, as in optical flats, and put together
with nothing in between, they will be forever joined in a short while. No
air space at all, there is a vacuum,, and the glass, an amorphous liquid,
yep liquid, will grow together by molecular migration. This also applies to
steel gage blocks as Johansen or Hoke blocks, but it takes a little longer
for them to become a unit. Been there, done that.... This has no parallel
to woodworking joint gaps, though...
As for wood, cleanly cut, flat, preferably planed and not sanded, wood bonds
better than rough wood any day.

Howie
Metrologist

"Agki Strodon" wrote in message
ink.net...
Does that mean that if you used something that wouldn't boil away, such
as silicone, the two pieces of glass would not stick together in a
vacuum? Has it been tried?


If the silicone molecules inter-attract with the silicon dioxide molecules
more strongly than they intra-attract amongst themselves, no. The plates
would stick through wetting of the glass. They may be easy to separate
and
that is a way of finding the strength of the interactions.

As to whether anyone has done it, I dunno.

Agkistrodon