MAKING GLASS

Glass in all its myriad forms starts life in the raw material quarry. Those are sand (silica (SiO2)), limestone / dolomite (calcium oxide (CaO)), and soda ash (sodium carbonate (Na2CO3)). These three basic raw materials are manufactured and then delivered to the furnace to be made into a batch and melted to produce molten glass. In the furnace, firing is by natural gas through the side ports and the glass temperature in the furnace ranges from about 1100 – 1590 degrees Celsius.

From the furnace, the melted glass entering a bottle and plate forming machine.

In the bottle forming machine, different forming techniques are used, depending on the container to be produced, like wide mouth bottles or light weight bottles. But generally, a carefully measured amount of molten glass, called a “gob”, is fired through a funnel into the blank removable mould. Air is then blown into the gob to make it hollow. Then compressed air is used to produce the final shape.

The finished bottle is removed from the machine and conveyed to the lehr for annealing. Anneal is to toughen (glass or metals) by heating and slow cooling.

For plate forming, the gob enter the rolling machine and end up in the plate form. This glass plate can be processed becoming another form like window etc.

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“Happy Idul Fitri 1428H”
Happy holiday…!!

Good work, thanks