Word: glassing
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Seven years ago Alastair Pilkington, a glass expert, whose father Sir Harry is chief of Britain's great Pilkington glass company, was helping his wife wash dishes. Watching the suds floating on the dishwater, he got an idea that is likely to revolutionize the manufacture of flat glass. Last week Alastair Pilkington explained his "float glass" process in the New Scientist...
Ordinary window glass is made by drawing a wide ribbon of glass vertically from a reservoir of syrupy melted glass. It cools in the air and has a brilliant "fire finish." But the process of drawing produces stresses that make flaws and irregularities. To make the glass smooth enough for mirrors, auto windshields and store windows, manufacturers are forced to an elaborate process of grinding and polishing glass sheets on both surfaces. The plate glass made in this way is expensive, and its surface lacks fire brilliance...
...suds in his wife's dishpan reminded Alastair Pilkington that the surface of a liquid is ideally flat. Back at the plant he floated molten glass on molten metal and found that its bottom side took on a shiny finish. In the full-scale machine, which took seven years to get working properly, a wide ribbon of soft glass is floated in a tank of molten metal (the metal or alloy used is a trade secret). As the ribbon moves to the far end of the tank, it is cooled by a controlled atmosphere and finally solidifies. The result...
...walking through the new Cullinan Hall found it good. The building is supported by four 82-ft.-long girders above the roof, leaving 10,000 sq. ft. of column-free space beneath a 30-ft. ceiling. Opening to the north is a curving façade of grey-tinted glass which has become the main museum entrance. In such stark simplicity, the touches of elegance-Roman travertine on the entrance stairs and terrace, green Venetian terrazzo floors-take on a rich but restrained resonance...
Competing with foreign craftsmen, many a U.S. builder cut his own prices. Lone Star lightened the weight of its best-selling 14-ft. Malibu outboard by 10%, lightened the price by $100, down to $525. Enginemakers also trimmed prices and weight, switched to aluminum and fiber glass to get more horsepower per pound. McCulloch Corp., the No. 3 outboard-motor maker (after Outboard Marine and Kiekhaefer) cut prices of its Scott motors as much as 10%. Kiekhaefer lopped about 5% off two of its Mercury motor prices...