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:
“Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais’d by breath of Kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn’d to that dirt from whence he sprung.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in jet,
T’other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within;
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.”
—Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)