Up: Glassmaking
Gilbert: 17 of 65
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HOW ARE THINGS MADE OF GLASS?
The mixture is heated to a high temperature
in fire clay pots or tanks in large ovens. The surface is skimmed from
time to time and the heating is continued until all air bubbles have
escaped from the mixture, usually about three days.
The glass is now quite fluid and it is allowed
to cool somewhat until it is viscous; then the objects are made by
blowing, pressing, or rolling, as described below.
The finished articles are finally "annealed,"
that is, they are placed while still hot in a second hot oven, which
is then sealed and allowed to cool slowly, for four or five days or
for as many weeks, according to the kind of glass.
If the glass objects cools quickly, it cools
more rapidly on the surface than in the interior. This produces a
condition of strain in the glass and the object may drop to pieces
when jarred or scratched. This condition of strain is avoided by
allowing the objects to cool very slowly, that is, by annealing.
WINDOW GLASS
Window glass is blown in exactly the same
way as you have blown glass balloons; the process is illustrated
in Fig. 1.
The glass mixture is heated for about three
days in fire clay pots and is allowed to cool until it is viscous.
The glass blower then attaches a lump of the viscous glass to the
end of a straight iron blowpipe about five feet long and blows a
bulb. He then reheats the glass and blows a larger pear-shaped bulb
and in doing so rests the glass on a pear-shaped mold of charred
wood (see center of Fig. 1). He again reheats the glass, holds the
pear-shaped bulb over a pit, and blows a long cylinder (see left of
Fig. 1).
The ends of the cylinder are now cut off
and the edges are smeared with molten glass to prevent splitting
(see right, Fig. 21). The cylinder is next cut
lengthwise with a diamond
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