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.
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Famous quotes containing the words float, glass and/or process:
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But where my fish float by I bless their swimming
And I like the people to bathe in me, especially women.”
—Stevie Smith (1902–1971)
“Our ideal ... must be a language as clear as glass—the person looking out of the window knows there is glass there, but he is not concerned with it; what concerns him is what comes through from the other side.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“... in the working class, the process of building a family, of making a living for it, of nurturing and maintaining the individuals in it “costs worlds of pain.””
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (b. 1924)