Pittsburgh - New Kensington - Butler - Leechburg - Natrona Heights - Kittanning - Freeport
Tarentum - Lower Burrell - Vandergrift - Ford City - Hyde Park - Fox Chapel - Brackenridge

Your Guide to the
Alle-Kiski Valley
and the Greater
Pittsburgh Area

Friday
April 26, 2024



Home    

Go Outside    

History    

Diversion    

Back Issues    











History - Industry - PPG Tarentum



Modeling Clay Pots for Molten Glass





In spite of the low prices, profits in glass manufacture are now greater than ever before. The workmen themselves, by improved methods of manufacture, have doubled their output, and hence are receiving better wages. Pennsylvania stands at the head of the glass working states. She is first in plate and window glass, table and fine blown ware, and second in fruit jars and bottles. This commonwealth produces three times as much glass as any other state. In some of the Pennsylvania glass mills may be seen furnaces capable of holding one thousand ton of molten glass, and of making four hundred and fifty boxes of window glass in twelve hours. These mills produce fifty per cent of all the glass made in the United States.

Here we see the first process of glass making. These clay pots are molded by hand, as we see these men doing, and then pulled to the drying room on a flat truck. We see one of the trucks, pulled by one man and pushed by several, rolling toward us down the room. After these pots are thoroughly dry the ingredients of the glass are mixed in them and they are placed in the furnace. The ingredients consist, generally, of quartz sand, sulphate of lime and sulphate or carbonate of soda, mixed in the proper proportions. Glass finished, as distinguished from the ingredients, is a silicate mixture, fluid at a high temperature.


Next - Drawing a Pot of Liquid Glass from the Furnace

Previous - Map Showing Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Tarentum, 1902

Return - PPG Tarentum






Copyright 1999-2014 by Darren McPhilimy, All Rights Reserved.