Show glass making first industry established on continent of north america Arne celebrates silver jubilee of a revolutionary discovery Dis overy by ELBIO SCOTT WATSON released by western newspaper union 1 HIS fall marks the T anniversary of a revolutionary change in the business of glass making an industry which traces its beginnings back more than years and which was the first to be established on ithe north american continent for it was just 25 years ago that the flat glass industry with its modern ramifications into window glass lauto motive safety plate glass opaque colored structural glass of many kinds and plate glass with all its uses for mirrors and wall panels came of age with the development of the colburn process for drawing a continuous sheet so the year 1914 might be heri laldee aided as the true beginning of the age of glass and this fau fall it lis lis celebrating is silver jubilee this milestone in in the develop ciment of americas oldest industry is however only one of many in its long and varied history glass makin making crossed the atlantic to america w with th the first i colonists and the first glass manufacture in the new world was established at jamestown virginia in 1608 1603 capt john smith mentioned that he engaged in a i trough rough and tumble fight with an indian chief one evening while returning to his house from the glass furnace americas first factory made glass beads to be traded to the indians for furs food and land the artisans were poles and italians they made the money which purchased the land of virginia the indians are said to have obtained some revenge for the sharp trading by destroying the glass plant in the jamestown massacre of 1622 other glass making projects were vere org organized anizel in colonial america in endless succession most glamorous of the glass entrepreneurs was baron heinrich wilhelm von who really a baron at all but who nevertheless lived in splendor like a feud feudal allord lord the ne baron arrives the baron arrived in philadel phia from germany in 1750 at the age of 21 and went to lancaster county where a year later he married elizabeth huber daughter of an iron manufacturer learned the iron making business and then began experimenting with glass he returned to germany to learn more about glass and brought artisans with him when he returned to america the glass business was a huge success he built the town of manheim pa near philadelphia adelphia la his mansion there was the talk of the colony he built a log castle on a hill called thurm berg whenever the baron arrived at one of his estates three cannon boomed to announce to his friends that a celebration was to be held baron loved the spectacular ta liked to be the best dressed man anywhere around med liked to make generous gifts he was a religious man too when he gave his fellow lutherans Luth erans land tor for a church in 1772 he demanded one red rose each june in payment the family still receives this tribute every year at the festival of the red rose in manheim it is easy to understand why town folks spoke of him as the baron when hard times came other manufacturers pulled in their horns but baron tried to expand his business instead ile he lost all his property served a sentence in debtors prison and died in poverty A piece of genuine glass is a treasure for collectors now glass has hundreds of uses in the modern world but its application for windows in buildings and transportation vehicles transcends all the others the oldest known window glass was found in the ruins of pompeii where panes half an inch thick were used to admit light to the famous baths this was the kind of glass through which objects were seen darkly there was constant striving then to improve the transparency the fall of rome caused a thousand year delay in the perfection of windows when edward I 1 of england brought eleanor back from spain as his bride king henry III HI was so delighted with the teenage girl that he gave the youthful couple a house which had real glass windows as a wedding present pope plus pius II 11 expressed surprise in 1448 at finding vienna church windows fitted with glass in 1467 frames to be fitted with paper were ordered for the duke of Burgun dys palace and in the reign of queen RZ z ot t ia ERA k three generations in the same art ornamental glass blowing has been carried on in the scott family since 1820 andrew walter scott 2nd and of los angeles angele learned the art from his father in 1873 and has taught his daughter mrs airs mable manley her son dick is a veteran of four gears ears experience at the age of 10 wide world photo elizabeth the duke of northumberland was war his steward that he hod had better have the windows taken down and stored when he left his estate even charles II 11 the luxury loving monarch who reigned from 1650 to 1685 had no glazed windows in his palace these facts show how rare glass for windows was when america was colonized the demand window glass rose during the eighteenth century but progress was slow in europe and america an unsuccessful attempt to manufacture window glass was made at al N J in 1738 1733 and in 1790 a wealthy young man named robert hewes built a factory near concord N H this unsuccessful effort cost him his fortune the boston crown glass company began operations in 1792 and became a financial success records show that it produced worth of window glass in 1798 glass made in the boston factory was said to be superior to the imported product and was known as boston crown window glass specimens still can be seen in old colonial houses of new england crown glass was made by gathering a large globule of m molten olt glass on the end of a blowpipe the glass then being blown into hollow spherical shapes then an iron rod or purity tipped with molten glass was applied to the opposite side of the sphere and the blowpipe was detached leaving a hole the globe attached to the was reheat ed and the polity given a sudden whirling motion that caused the globe to open and flatten to the form of a disc the disc was removed annealed in an oven and then cut into small sheets the panes containing the bulls eye or crown where the purity had been attached were used for decorative effects and were employed largely for tran and side lights of doory doorways this method of making window glass blower dick flanley demonstrates on how those pretty red ornaments are made for your christmas tree wide world photo glass was expensive and wasteful and only small lights could be produced inventors began a long effort to improve window glass and reduce the cost of manufacture the hand process of blowing glass into cylinders instead of globules glo bules which could be flattened was a slight advance over the old crown glass method and continued to be the accepted process until 1903 gla vi was blown to form an elongated cylinder the ends cut away the cylinder split open and flattened the next step was the machine cylinder process which made possible larger sheets of glass and elimination of much arduous toil compressed air replaced human lung power and machinery did the heavy lifting window glass made by the hand or machine cylinder methods never became precisely flat the sheets had to be packed all the same way in boxes for shipping to allow for the bow in the glass so irving W colburn a pennsylvania inventor began attempts to make flatter flat glass in 1898 1893 in a small experimental plant at blackford near philadelphia he made little progress until 1905 when he saw a papermaking machine in operation and determined that sheet glass could be manufactured by a similar method it had been his idea from the start that flat glass should be produced in sheet form instead of having to be flattened after it was made spent a million from 1905 to 1912 colburn built machine after machine and spent more than of his own and his friends money success always seemed at hand but not quite within reach the colburn domestic and foreign patents were sold at auction in 1912 after the colburn machine glass company was declared bankrupt colburns colburne Col burns backers finally had lost confidence in his process but michael J owens the master inventive mind of the glass industry and creator of the owens bottle making machine believed that colburns colburne Col burns basic idea was sound and that only refinements were needed owens induced edward D libbey his associate for many years and the toledo glass company of which libbey was president to purchase the i colburn patents from the trustee in bankruptcy libbey owens and their associates redesigned the flat drawing machine and after many months of effort and the expenditure of another million dollars the first wide ribbon of really flat glass was drawn in a continuous process when the libbey owens sheet glass company forerunner of the present libbey owens ford glass company was formed in may 1916 and purchased patent rights of the toledo glass company colburn was rewarded for his years of effort by receiving a liberal stock interest in the new company this enabled him to discharge the many obligations assumed during the earlier years of his work and to provide for his family in the colburn flat drawn process the ingredients of glass sand ground limestone soda ash salt cake and cullet broken glass are fed into the furnace and melted at a temperature of about 2800 degrees fahrenheit the molten metal passes through a refining chamber and enters a shallow drawing pot by means of heat applied ui u under i and around the edges of tl e pot the temperature is maintained at the proper degree for drawing to start the drawing the machine is placed in reverse motion which allows a bait a flat iron bar attached to strips of flexible metal to pass over the bending roll down into the molten glass the glass immediately adheres to the bar and the machine is started in forward motion wide ribbon clibbon of glass out comes a wide ribbon of glass pulled by the bait like pulling hot taffy out of a pan with th a spatula onto the horizontal w flattening table and then to the long annealing oven or lehr when the bait reaches the end of the flatte flattening nine 0 table it is cracked off and removed allowing the flat glass to continue through the foot lehr the ribbon of flat glass is prevented from pulling to a point as taffy or sealing wax does when an implement is lifted from the pot by revolving knurled knobs and water cooling along the edges of the sheet which maintains a constant width after it is annealed the glass is cut to desired sizes washed graded and boxed for shipping the colburn colbum flat dra drawn wn process has made possible higher quality window glass at lower cost and raised the standard of natural illumination for all interiors it has made double glazing of residences economical and practical as a winter fuel saving method where previously even single windows were virtually luxuries afforded only by the well to do equally interesting is another phase of the glass industry the history of the newest type automobile windows dating from a spring evening in paris in 1903 when edouard benedictus a french chemist dropped a bottle when it struck the tile floor the bottle bounced instead of scattering picking it up benedictus found the bottle star cracked but held together by a celluloid like enamel which had formed when its contents evaporated benedictus later saw a taxicab collision in which a young woman was cut severely by broken glass then lie he thought of the bottle which did not shatter ile he rushed to his laboratory and worked all night preparing the cheese for the fi first safety sandwich two pieces of glass with a plastic filler between were squeezed in an old copy press lie he used gelatin on the inner surfaces of the glass to hold the gand sandwich tov together ether benedictus laminated safety glass was used for airplane air screens automobile windshields wind shields goggle and gas mask lenses during the world war crude in performance for mance and high in cost it nevertheless erth eless proved the soundness of the laminating principle after the war ended there was no demand for safety glass until closed cars began to replace touring cars and roadsters in the early twenties then benedictus discovery came to the attention of automobile and flat glass manufacturers scientists were set to work to perfect laminated safety glass because more than halt half of the injuries in collisions resulted from contact with jagged pieces of glass laminated safety glass made its first commercial appearance in the united states in 1924 it cost 10 to 12 a square foot then and was far from being a satisfactory product the filler was nitrocellulose nitro cellulose which turned brown and cloudy when exposed to sunlight the filler also loosened with aging and weathering the demand was so great however that even this imperfect product had become standard equipment for windshields wind shields of some makes of automobiles by 1928 1923 research men still faced the dual task of improving the plastic ti c filler and developing thin precision casion plate glass which would allow drivers and passengers an undistorted view from a car the successor to nitrocellulose nitro cellulose as the safety sandwich insides was 44 at ilk lung power was used for or centuries to produce all types of glass this photograph shows the big cheek development acquired by a glassblower glass blower after 30 years following his calling from ewing galloway N Y cellulose acetate which did not discolor but required sealing around the edges of the glass to prevent weather loosening cellulose acetate safety glass was so satisfactory to the public that the presence of the plastic filler was almost forgotten but scientists foresaw a filler which would be even stronger and more elastic at all temperatures in a six year six million dollar research program chemists and glass engineers developed a high test filler called polyvinyl resin and precision plate glass less than one eighth inch thick this new product safer at all temperatures and providing clear vision will be standard equipment for wind shields and windows of many 1940 automobile models the new plastic clings to glass so well that no adhesive is required in assembling the sandwich an and d no edge sealing is needed because weathering does not make polyvinyl thus twentieth century motorists get the b benefits ene of a climatic phase of research efforts which actually have been going on for years scientists and historians have predicted that in the future our time will be known as the age of glass because of its versatility new forms and uses of glass constantly are being developed and the end is not in sight |