Float Glass Process
Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and various low melting point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat surfaces. Modern windows are made from float glass. Most float glass is soda-lime glass, but relatively minor quantities of specialty borosilicate and flat panel display glass are also produced using the float glass process. The float glass process is also known as the Pilkington process, named after the British glass manufacturer Pilkington, who pioneered the technique (invented by Sir Alastair Pilkington) in the 1950s.
Read more about this topic: Glass Production
Famous quotes containing the words float, glass and/or process:
“Boys finding for the first time their loins filled with heart’s
blood
Widowed farmers whose hands float under light covers to find
themselves
Arisen at sunrise”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
—Timothy Leary (b. 1920)