Topic: Float Glass exportation

[See through Noob]

Hi,

I'm a see through noob (uni student doing some research on a company but with a genuine interest in glass) with a dumb question:

How is glass generally exported or shipped in mass?

As ridiculous as it sounds, I just think there would be a be alot of breakages (not joking). Is there a way of transporting it safely?

Or do companies tend to set up domestic plants?

Thanks in advance for your help. I've had a quick read through the forum and enjoyed reading it - though most of it went over my head.

[Fuhrman Glass]

shipped in wooden crates and loaded into containers to go all over the world. In the wooden crates the sheets  are stacked on edge with a sheet of paper between every piece of glass. It is all packed very tightly and with lots of cushioning on the top and bottom. There are literally boat loads full of it being shipped all the time.

[glassobsessed]

I work part time in a picture framers, we use a lot of 2mm float glass, the vast majority sheets 4" by 3" (915mm X 1220mm). It arrives on a van after a journey of over 100 miles and is stacked inside on timber, upright and at a slight angle. Almost always the sheets are in perfect condition. I think the driver usually carries them in 10 at a time. That particular framing supplies company was founded by a bloke with one arm, how he used to manage the glass I do not know.

John

[Ohio]

In the old days they also used wooden barrels packed tight filled with sawdust. Didn't allow for shifting & plenty of cushioning.

[glass man]

I did not know that float glass meant sheets of glass. Back in the 1980s I was told that Lalique glass was shipped to the states packed in wet straw. That was by a sales lady at a major jewelry store when we bought Caroline the amber turtle. I agree that much early pattern and depression glass was shipped in wood barrows packed in straw.    Bob

[Ohio]

" I did not know that float glass meant sheets of glass." Well I didn't either. My comment was based on shipping glass items, vases, bowls, utilitarian glass long distances in cargo. Guess I should have read it more carefully. U.S. companies did this on a regular basis all the way up into the 1950s. Cambridge even had their own Cooper operation in the plant (although it was privately owned) where the guys made the shipping barrels. Attached a photo of the Cambridge Cooper shop taken in the mid 1930s.

[Fuhrman Glass]

Float glass refers to sheet glass that is produced with the "float" process. This involves floating thin layers of glass coming directly out of the furnace on a bed of molten tin that normally runs continually and is 70-125 feet long. The glass is floated over the edge of the furnace in widths from 8-16'  wide. The wide strip of glass then continues down the line and off the tin  and is annealed very quickly. It is then cut in to smaller pieces depending on the order and automatically stacked and loaded into crates. Almost all the processing and cutting and packing is done automatically. The thicker the glass the slower the line runs. I ws thru the Pilkington factory in Ohio a year or so ago and it was wuite an experience to see this production. Entire line for production can be 1/2 mi. long.

[Fuhrman Glass]

Museum of American Glass in WV has some examples of completely packed wooden barrels with sawdust in their collection.  very interesting to see

[Ohio]

Thats a Tom Felt/Dean Six/Helen Jones operation & I think they have slighty expanded it during the past year...just wish it was off the interstate like I-70 or I-77 rather than off the beaten path.

[Fuhrman Glass]

It's just a mile off of I-79 going thru the middle of West Virginia. admission is free and they have got an amazing collection of glass and everything pertaining to it. worth the drive in my mind, and an excellent library that anyone can use, 1000's of books on glass.