Up: Paper
Millville 1987
8 of 10
|
|
| |
A completely automatic bottle making
machine works like a man. A mechanical feed which allows just
the right amount of molten glass to enter the blank mold might
be likened to gathering glass on the end of a blow pipe in the
old hand method. When pressed into rough shape in the blank
mold, it is automatically conveyed into the finishing mold,
where compressed air, corresponding to the old fashioned lung
power, blows into finished form. Again, mechanical hands lift
the bottle, now fully formed, on to a conveyor, whence it travels
to, and through the annealing process in what is known as a lehr,
and becomes a finished product. Simple as this operation is to
describe, it depends upon absolutely timing to make it work.
There are up to twenty molds on one of these machines. Each
blank mold has to receive its proper allotment of molten glass,
press it and transfer it to the companion mold to be blown and
discharged on to a conveyor. When it is realized that these
machines make as high as 300 bottles a minute, it is easy to
see that precise timing is the essence of the operation. It
should also be realized that with a machine of this intricate
nature, once started it should be kept in constant operation for
a considerable period of time. Hence the necessity for a
continuous supply of molten glass and the continuous furnace.
The total machine capacity of our plant
at this time is nine machines. Between four and five hundred
hands are employed producing a daily maximum of about six hundred
tons of glass. The products of these works consist principally of
beer, beverage, a general line of commercial jars, and liquor
bottles.
It has taken more than 18 decades of
accumulated knowledge to make us what we are today in the intricate
art of glass fabrication. From a hand operated plant burning wood
for heat it has become a modern mechanized one using gas and oil
for fuel.
Spectacular changes are being made and
installed all the time in an effort to produce the best quality
of ware at a constantly diminishing cost of operation.
|
|