How window glass is made. How is glass made? How are glasses and lemonade bottles made from it? Manufacture of industrial glass products

Today we will talk about how to make glass with your own hands at home. We will also consider methods and technologies self-manufacturing glass and glass products, namely furnaces, appliances and tools for melting glass

In factories and chemical laboratories glass is obtained from a mixture - a thoroughly mixed dry mixture of powdered salts, oxides and other compounds. When heated in furnaces to very high temperatures, often above 1500°C, salts decompose to oxides, which, interacting with each other, form silicates, borates, phosphates, and other compounds that are stable at high temperatures. Together they make glass.

We will prepare the so-called fusible glasses, for which a laboratory electric furnace with a heating temperature of up to 1000°C is sufficient. You will also need crucibles, crucible tongs (so as not to burn yourself) and a small flat plate, steel or cast iron. First we will weld the glass, and then we will find a use for it.

Mix with a spatula on a sheet of paper 10 g of sodium tetraborate (borax), 20 g of lead oxide and 1.5 g of cobalt oxide, sifted through a sieve. This is our burden. Pour it into a small crucible and compact with a spatula so that you get a cone with a top in the center of the crucible. The compacted mixture should occupy no more than three-quarters of the volume in the crucible, then the glass will not spill.

Place the crucible with tongs in an electric furnace (crucible or muffle), heated to 800–900 °C, and wait until the mixture has melted. This is judged by the release of bubbles: as soon as it has stopped, the glass is ready. Remove the crucible from the oven with tongs and immediately pour the melted glass onto a clean steel or cast iron plate. Cooling on the stove, the glass forms a blue-violet ingot.

To obtain glasses of other colors, replace the cobalt oxide with other coloring oxides. Iron(III) oxide (1-1.5 g) will color the glass brown, copper(II) oxide (0.5-1 g) green, a mixture of 0.3 g of copper oxide with 1 g of cobalt oxide and 1 g iron oxide (III) - black. If you take only boric acid and lead oxide, then the glass will remain colorless and transparent. Experiment yourself with other oxides, such as chromium, manganese, nickel, tin.

Crush the glass with a pestle in a porcelain mortar. In order not to injure yourself with fragments, be sure to wrap your hand with a towel, and cover the mortar with a pestle with a clean rag.

Pour fine glass powder onto thick glass, add a little water and grind to a creamy state with a chime - a glass or porcelain disc with a handle. Instead of a chime, you can take a small flat-bottomed mortar or a polished piece of granite - this is what the old masters did when they rubbed paint. The resulting mass is called slip. We will apply it to the aluminum surface in much the same way as they do when making jewelry.

Clean the aluminum surface with sandpaper and degrease by boiling in a soda solution. On a clean surface, trace the outline of the pattern with a scalpel or needle. Cover the surface with a slip with an ordinary brush, dry it over a flame, and then heat it in the same flame until the glass melts onto the metal. You will get enamel.

If the badge is small, it can be covered with a layer of glass and heated in a flame in its entirety. If the product is larger (say, a plate with an inscription), then it is necessary to break it into sections and apply glass to them one by one. To make the color of the enamel more intense, apply the glass again. In this way, it is possible to obtain not only decorations, but also reliable enamel coatings to protect aluminum parts in various devices and models. Since in this case the enamel carries an additional load, it is desirable to cover the metal surface after degreasing and washing with a dense oxide film; to do this, it is enough to hold the part for 5-10 minutes in an oven with a temperature slightly below 600 ° C.

Of course, it is more convenient to apply slip on a large part not with a brush, but from a spray gun or simply by watering (but the layer should be thin). Dry the part in an oven at 50–60°C, and then transfer it to an electric furnace heated to 700–800°C.

And from low-melting glass, you can prepare painted plates for mosaic work. Pieces of broken porcelain dishes (they will always be given to you in a china shop) pour a thin layer of slip over them, dry them at room temperature or in an oven and melt the glass onto the plates, keeping them in an electric furnace at a temperature of at least 700 ° C.

Having mastered the work with glass, you can help your colleagues from the biological circle: they often make stuffed animals there, and stuffed animals need multi-colored eyes ...

In a steel plate about 1.5 cm thick, drill a few recesses different sizes with a conical or spherical bottom. In the same way as before, fuse the multi-colored glasses. Gamma, perhaps, is enough, and to change the intensity, slightly increase or decrease the content of the coloring additive.

Place a small drop of bright molten glass into the recess of the steel plate, then pour in the iris-colored glass. The drop will enter the main mass, but will not mix with it - this is how both the pupil and the iris will be reproduced. Cool products slowly, avoiding sudden temperature changes. To do this, remove the hardened, but still hot “eyes” from the mold with heated tweezers, put them in loose asbestos and cool it to room temperature already in it. .

Of course, fusible glasses can be found in other applications. But wouldn't it be better if you look for them yourself?

And at the end of the experiments with glass, using the same electric furnace, we will try to turn ordinary glass into colored glass. The natural question is: is it possible to make sunglasses in this way? It is possible, but it is unlikely that you will succeed the first time, because the process is capricious and requires some skills. Therefore, take the glasses only after you have practiced on the pieces of glass and make sure that the result is as expected.

The basis of paint for glass will be rosin. From resinates, acid salts that make up rosin, you previously prepared driers for oil paints. Let us turn again to resinates, because they are able to form a thin, even film on glass and serve as carriers of the coloring matter,

In a solution of caustic soda with a concentration of about 20%, dissolve with stirring and remembering, of course, caution, pieces of rosin until the liquid becomes dark yellow. After filtering, add a little solution of ferric chloride FeCl3 or other ferric salt. Keep in mind that the concentration of the solution should be small, salt should not be taken in excess - the precipitate of iron hydroxide, which in this case forms, will interfere with us. If the salt concentration is low, then a red precipitate of iron resinate is formed - it is there that is needed.

Filter off the red precipitate and dry it in air, and then dissolve to saturation in pure gasoline (not automobile, but solvent gasoline), it would be even better to use hexane or petroleum ether. Paint the glass surface with a thin layer with a brush or spray gun, let it dry and place it in an oven heated to about 600 ° C for 5-10 minutes.

But rosin belongs to organic substances, and they cannot withstand such a temperature! That's right, but that's exactly what you need - let the organic base burn out. Then the thinnest film of iron oxide will remain on the glass, well adhered to the surface. And although the oxide is generally opaque, in such a thin layer it transmits part of the light rays, that is, it can serve as a light filter.
Perhaps the light protection layer will seem too dark or, on the contrary, too light. In this case, vary the conditions of the experiment - slightly increase or decrease the concentration of the rosin solution, change the firing time and temperature. If you are not satisfied with the color in which the glass is painted, replace the iron chloride with another metal chloride, but certainly one whose oxide is brightly colored, such as copper or cobalt chloride.

And when the technology is carefully worked out on pieces of glass, it is possible to make the transformation of ordinary glasses into sunglasses without much risk. Just remember to remove the glass from the frame - the plastic frame will not withstand the heat in the oven in the same way as the rosin base ...
.
To get glass, sand must be melted. You must have walked on hot sand on a sunny day, so you can guess that for this it needs to be heated to very high temperatures. An ice cube melts at a temperature of about 0 C. Sand begins to melt at a temperature of at least 1710 C, which is almost seven times the maximum temperature of our usual oven.
Heating any substance to such a temperature requires a lot of energy and, consequently, money. For this reason, in the production of glass for everyday use, glassmakers add a substance to the sand that helps the sand melt at lower temperatures - about 815 C. Usually this substance is soda ash.
However, if only a mixture of sand and soda ash is used in the melt, an amazing type of glass can be obtained - glass that dissolves in water (frankly, not the best choice for glasses).

To prevent the glass from dissolving, a third substance must be added. Glass makers add crushed limestone to sand and soda (you must have seen this beautiful white stone).

The glass commonly used to make windows, mirrors, glasses, bottles, and light bulbs is called soda-lime silicate. Such glass is very durable, and in molten form it is easy to give it the desired shape. In addition to sand, soda ash and limestone, this mixture (experts say "mixture") includes a little magnesium oxide, aluminum oxide, boric acid, as well as substances that prevent the formation of air bubbles in this mixture.

All these ingredients are combined and the mixture (the mixture is placed in a giant furnace (the largest of these furnaces can hold almost 1,110,000 kg of liquid glass). .

The strong fire of the furnace heats the mixture until it begins to melt and turns from a solid to a viscous liquid. Liquid glass continues to be heated at high temperatures until all bubbles and veins disappear from it, since the thing made from it must be absolutely transparent. When the mass of glass becomes homogeneous and clean, the fire is reduced and the glass is waited until the glass turns into a viscous viscous mass - like a hot toffee. The glass is then poured from the furnace into a casting machine where it is poured into molds and shaped.
However, in the production of hollow things, such as bottles, glass must be blown, as balloon. Previously, glass blowing could be seen during fairs and carnivals, now this process is often shown on TV. You've probably seen glassblowers blowing a piece of hot glass hanging from the end of a tube to create amazing figurines. But you can also blow glass with the help of machines. The basic principle of glassblowers is to blow into a glass drop until an air bubble forms in the middle, which becomes a cavity in the finished thing.

After the glass has been given the necessary shape, a new danger lies in wait for it - it can crack when cooled to room temperature. To avoid this, craftsmen try to control the cooling process by subjecting the hardening glass to heat treatment. The last stage of processing is removing excess glass droplets from the handles of cups or polishing plates with special chemicals that make them perfectly smooth.

Scientists are still arguing whether glass should be considered a solid or a very viscous (syrup-like) liquid. Since the windows of old houses are thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top, some claim that the glass runs down over time. However, one can object to this that earlier window panes were not made perfectly even and people simply inserted them into the frames with a thicker edge down. Even glassware from ancient Roman times shows no signs of "fluidity". Thus, the old window glass example does not help resolve the question of whether glass is in fact a highly viscous liquid.

Composition (raw materials) for glass production at home:
Quartz sand;
soda ash;
Talamit;
Limestone;
Nepheline syenite;
Sodium sulfate.

How glass is made at home (production process)

Usually scrap glass (broken glass) plus the above components are used as ingredients.

1) Elements The future glass is fed into the furnace, where it all melts at a temperature of 1500 degrees, forming a homogeneous liquid mass.

2) Liquid glass enters the homogenizer (an apparatus for creating stable mixtures), where it is mixed to a mass with a uniform temperature.

3) The hot mass is allowed to settle for several hours.

This is how glass is made!

31.10.2017 19:01 2116

Glass is an indispensable item in our lives. It is found everywhere: in residential buildings, shop windows and in all modes of transport.

Have you ever wondered what glass is made of?

People learned how to make glass in ancient Egypt about 5 thousand years ago, but unlike modern glass, it was not as transparent as it is now.

The main material for making glass is quartz sand. Lime and soda are added to it and heated in a special oven. Due to the interaction with soda, sand melts better. Lime also serves to strengthen the resulting material, and it does not collapse when interacting with water. If lime were not added, then the glass could simply dissolve on contact with water. When the temperature reaches 1700 degrees, all three materials mix and become one substance, which is lowered into molten tin at a temperature of more than 1000 degrees. Next, the resulting material is placed on a conveyor, where it is cooled to 250 degrees. In the same place, the glass is cut into standard parts and adjustable in thickness.

To obtain colored glass, in addition to soda and lime, compounds of chemical elements are added to sand. For example, green glass can be obtained by adding chromium, yellow by adding uranium oxide, and red by iron oxide. An oxide is a compound of a chemical element (for example, a metal) with oxygen.

Various forms of glass are obtained by blowing its red-hot mass. There is such a profession - a glass blower. This is a craftsman who makes glass of various shapes. The glassblower uses a special long tube in his work.

On its tip, he catches molten glass and blows out the resulting bubble. In this case, the glassblower rotates the tube, and the bubble enters a special wooden or metal mold. Sometimes masters make their masterpieces without forms. They process the bubble blown out of the tube with the help of tools (forceps, scissors, trowels, etc.), giving it various shapes.

A person daily encounters glass products. Glass is almost a magical object - on the one hand it is transparent, on the other a material object. A substance will be transparent when photons (quanta of light) pass through it without being absorbed. But for some reason, not everyone comes up with the idea - how and from what is glass made? How is the process going?

Interesting Facts:

• It takes millions of years for glass to decompose.
• Glass is recycled without loss of quality.
• The thickest glass in the world is the 26 cm screen of the Sydney Aquarium.

What is glass made from?

To make glass, craftsmen take: quartz sand (the main component); lime; soda;

First, quartz sand, soda and lime are heated in a special furnace to a temperature of 1700 degrees above zero. The grains of sand are interconnected, after they are homogenized (turns into a homogeneous substance), the gas is removed. The mass is "dipped" into molten tin with a temperature above 1000 degrees, which floats on the surface due to its lower density. The smaller the mass that enters the tin bath, the thinner the glass will be at the exit.

Interesting Facts:

• The most expensive glass in the world is Murano glass. Products from it cost millions of dollars. Since ancient times, Venice has been famous for the production of high-quality glass. It is authentically known that in the 13th century the government of the state transferred production to the large island of Murano, and the craftsmen were strictly forbidden to leave it. Punishment is a death sentence. In addition, for tourists or other residents of Venice, the entrance to the island was also closed. Such strict measures made it possible to keep the secret of production.
• One of the most interesting mental illness The Middle Ages is the "glass disease". A person with such a disorder thought that he was made of glass, and was afraid to break. The French king Charles VI suffered from such an ailment. The monarch always wore several layers of clothing and forbade anyone to touch himself.

What functions do soda and lime perform in the production process?

Soda helps to reduce the melting point by 2 times. If it is not added, the sand will be very difficult to melt, and, accordingly, to connect individual grains of sand to each other. Lime is needed so that the mass endures water. If it were not in the composition, the window, for example, would dissolve immediately after the first rain, and the glass would burst after contact with water.

Related materials:

What is Venetian glass and why did artists buy eggs?

Interesting Facts:

1. China did not produce glass for over 500 years, from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Now the state is one of the leaders in production, and controls a third of the world glass market.
2. 1994 was a very busy year for glass recycling in the US. If you put all the glass products processed during that year in one line, you get a kind of “road” to the moon.

How is colored glass made?

Glass is produced not only colorless. To obtain a colored product, in addition to the main components, chemical compounds are added to the melting furnace:

1. Iron oxides give the glass a rich red tint.
2. Nickel oxides - brown, violet (depending on the amount).
3. To get a bright yellow tint, add uranium oxides to sand, soda and lime.
4. Chrome makes glass green.

What are the characteristics and properties of glass?

The proportions of components for the manufacture of glass goods are selected depending on their purpose. Allocate: household glass - something from which they make dishes, glasses, jewelry; building - showcases, windows, stained-glass windows;

Glassmaking is a very ancient process. There is archaeological evidence that humans have been making glass as far back as 2500 BC. Once a rare and valuable piece of art, obtaining glass is now commonplace. production process. Glass products are used as industrial and household containers, insulators, reinforcing fibers, lenses and objects decorative arts. Materials for obtaining different types of glass may differ, but general process its receipt is described below.

Steps

Use of the oven

Purchase quartz sand. Quartz sand is the main ingredient for glass production. Iron-free glass is valued for its transparency, as if the glass contains iron, the glass will appear greenish.

• Wear a mask if you are working with very fine quartz sand. If inhaled, it can irritate the throat and lungs.
• Quartz sand can be bought in online stores. It is quite cheap, a bag weighing 25 kg costs around 200 rubles. If you want to work on an industrial scale, then for large quantities, specialized sellers can offer good prices- sometimes less than 2000 rubles per ton.
• If you cannot find sand that contains few impurities, the greenish tint effect can be offset by adding small amounts of manganese dioxide. And if you want greenish glass, leave the iron as is!

1. Add sodium carbonate and calcium oxide to the sand. Sodium carbonate (called soda ash) lowers the production temperature of industrial glasses. However, it causes glass to be corroded by water. Therefore, in order to neutralize this phenomenon, calcium oxide, or lime, is additionally introduced into the glass. In order to make glass more resistant, magnesium and/or aluminum oxides are added to it. Typically, these additives occupy no more than 26–30 percent of the glass composition.

   Depending on the purpose of the glass, add other chemicals. The most common decorative glass additive is lead oxide, which gives the crystal its brilliance, as well as its low hardness, which makes it easier to cut, and its low melt formation temperature. Spectacle lenses may contain lanthanum oxide, which is used for its refractive power, while iron promotes the absorption of iron by the glass.

   • Lead crystal can contain up to 33 percent lead oxide, but the more lead, the more experience it takes to form molten glass, so many glassmakers choose a low lead content.

2. Add components to obtain the desired glass color, if necessary. As noted above, iron impurities in quartz glass give it a greenish appearance, so iron oxide is added to enhance the greenish tint, as is copper oxide. Sulfur compounds give a yellowish, amber, brownish and even black tint, depending on how much carbon or iron is added to the glass mixture.

   put the mixture in a good temperature-resistant crucible. The crucible must withstand the exceptionally high temperatures that are reached in the furnace. Depending on the additives, it can range from 1500 to 2500 degrees. The crucible must be such that it is not difficult to grip it with metal tongs and rods.

   Melt the mixture until liquid. For industrial silicate glass, this is carried out in a gas-fired furnace, special glasses can be melted in an electric, pot or muffle furnace.

   • Quartz and sand without impurities pass into a glassy state at a temperature of 2300 degrees Celsius. The addition of sodium carbonate (soda) reduces the temperature required for glass formation to 1500 degrees Celsius.

3. Homogenize the molten glass and remove bubbles from it. This involves stirring the glass to an even consistency and adding substances such as sodium sulfate, sodium chloride or antimony oxide.

   Mold the molten glass. Glass molding can be done in one of the following ways:

   • Melted glass can be poured into a mold and allowed to cool. This method was used by the Egyptians and is how most optical lenses are made.
   • A large amount of molten glass can be collected at the end of a hollow pipe and then blown out by turning the pipe. Glass is shaped by air blown into the pipe, gravity acting on the glass melt, and any tools the glassblower uses to work with the melted glass.
   • Molten glass can be poured into a bath of molten tin used as a substrate and blown with pressurized nitrogen for shaping and polishing. The glass formed by this method is called float glass, and this is how flat glass has been made since the 1950s.

4. Cool the glass slowly in the oven. This process is called annealing, and it removes any point sources of stress that may have formed during the cooling of the glass. Unannealed glass is much less durable. Once the process is complete, the glass can be coated, laminated, or otherwise treated to improve strength and durability.

   Using a charcoal grill

   1. Make a makeshift oven out of a charcoal-fired barbecue grill. This method uses the heat generated by a flame from burning charcoal to melt quartz sand into glass. The materials used are relatively cheap and readily available - theoretically, to prepare everything you need to get glass, you only need to run to the hardware store. Use a large BBQ grill - a standard sized dome model will do. It should be as thick and strong as possible. Most barbecue grills have a vent on the bottom - open that up.

      • Even at the extremely high temperatures that this method achieves, melting the sand on the grill can be very difficult. Before you begin, add a small amount (about 1/3–1/4 of the sand's volume) of washing soda, lime, and/or borax to the sand. These additives lower the melting point of the sand.
      • If you're going to be blowing glass, have a long, hollow metal pipe handy. If you are going to pour the glass into a mold, prepare it in advance. You want a shape that won't burn or melt from the heat of molten glass, graphite is great for that.

   2. Know the danger of this method. This method involves heating the barbecue grill beyond its normal temperature limits - so much so that the grill itself may even melt. Careless work using this method is dangerous severe injuries or even death. Work with care. Keep plenty of earth, sand, or a high-temperature fire extinguisher on hand in case you need to reduce the intensity of the fire.

      Take all possible precautions to protect yourself and your belongings from high temperatures. Work on this method on a concrete surface outdoors, with sufficient space around. Do not use irreplaceable equipment. stay away from the grill when you cook glass. You also need to wear as much protective clothing as possible, including:

      • high-strength gloves or mittens for ovens;
      • welding mask;
      • high-strength apron;
      • fire resistant clothing.

   3. Get a vacuum cleaner for your home workshop with a long hose attachment. Use duct tape or otherwise bend the hose so that it blows straight into the bottom vent without touching the grill body. You will probably need to attach the hose to one of the grill legs or wheels. Place the vacuum cleaner itself as far away from the grill as possible.

      • Make sure that the hose is fixed and does not move: if it comes loose during glass melting, not go to the grill if it is very hot.
      • Turn on the vacuum cleaner to check the position of the hose. A precisely placed hose will blow straight into the vent.

   4. Line the inside of the grill with charcoal. Use more charcoal than you would for roasting meat. Successful results are observed when the grill is filled almost to the brim.

WHAT IS THE ARTICLE ABOUT?

Glass composition

The components that make up glass can be divided into the following types:

• The foundation
• Mandatory Alkali Metal Oxides
• Components that give special properties
• Excipients

Also in some cases, cullet is added.

The basis of any glass is quartz sand or silicon dioxide. Moreover, only selected sand, purified from iron impurities and from the slightest contaminants, gets into the mixture for future glass, about 2% of impurities are allowed. The transparency of the glass itself depends on this.

The required alkali metal oxides are different depending on the type of glass. For example:

• for window glass, oxides of sodium, calcium or aluminum are used
• for crystal - oxides of potassium and lead
• for laboratory - oxides of sodium, potassium, boron
• for optical - oxides of barium, aluminum, boron

Components to impart special properties are selected based on the desired effect, for example, titanium or barium oxides are added to impart heat resistance, and so on.

Auxiliary substances are mostly illuminators, bleaches and dyes.

Industrial glass production

It all starts with the fact that all the necessary substances are brought to the production plant. The main components of what glass is made of are quartz sand, dolomite, soda, lime. All substances undergo preparatory processing. Sand is cleaned of iron impurities, dolomite and lime are crushed in a crusher. After that, all substances are mixed and at this stage the components necessary to impart certain properties are also mixed in. This whole mixture is called a mixture. A mixture is a mixture that is already completely ready for further processing, that is, it is already exactly what glass is made of.

Begins technological process for the manufacture of glass. The finished charge goes through the conveyor into the bunkers, from which it is poured into the loader, and the loader already pushes it into the furnace. Since the temperature here ranges from 1200 to 1600 degrees, depending on the type of future glass, such a furnace operates continuously for several years. Because you can’t just take and turn off such a furnace, otherwise it will simply collapse. In order to turn off such an oven, it will take about a week of uniform cooling. At this temperature, the charge turns into glass mass.

From the furnace, this glass mass first enters a tank with a stirrer, and after it is well mixed, it flows into the stubbing chamber. Here it cools down to about 1000 degrees. From the student part, the glass melt enters the fleet bath. At this stage, an interesting process occurs. A navy bath is a bath of molten tin, the temperature of which is about 600-700 degrees Celsius. On this tin, the glass mass literally floats and cools down a little, it is thanks to this technology that it acquires an almost perfect plane.

After a bath with tin, the glass ribbon enters the firing lehr, which is more than 100 meters long, rolling over which it gradually cools.

The next step is cutting the tape into sheets of glass. This is where some very clever technology comes into play. Cutting takes place directly in the direction of the tape, which significantly speeds up the entire process of glass production. How can you cut the tape on the go, you ask. The fact is that the cutter moves at exactly the same speed as the tape and at this time cuts it across, after which it returns to its original position. So we get finished sheets of glass.

Now, such equipment as a stacker machine comes into operation. As the name suggests, she makes stacks of glass. The movement of glass sheets occurs with the help of suction cups, since the glass is very fragile, but it weighs quite a lot, it cannot be moved in any other way. After the stacks are formed, they are transported by a special loader, and then the glass is distributed to warehouses, shops, to places where double-glazed windows are made from them, and so on.

By the way, why is glass transparent? The fact is that quartz sand is completely transparent. But we cannot see anything through the grains of sand due to the multiple refraction of light. For example, if you break the glass into many pieces, then you will not see anything through them either. And when the sand turns into a smooth mass, then here we already see a transparent sheet of glass.

Manufacturing of glass products

Glass products can be divided into two large types. The first are those products that are produced on an industrial scale, the so-called glass containers, such as glass bottles, jars. The second big view is art products. This is the name of all products that are made by hand by glassblowers, such as vases, glass figurines, figurines and the like. In the manufacture of glass products, industrial glass and in general any glass, the initial stage of production is always absolutely similar, until the glass mass is obtained. Only the components that make up the charge, the melting temperature and the subsequent processing of the resulting glass mass are different.

Manufacture of industrial glass products

The finished glass mass from the furnace falls into a glass line, from which it flows out in the form of a sausage and is cut into cylindrical drops by a cutter, one such drop is a future bottle or jar. The drop is sent to a so-called scoop, which directs them to the molding machine. It works by the following method: the holders take the drop by the edge and hold it in a hanging position, the entire lower part of the drop is closed on both sides with the desired shape, whether it be a jar or a bottle, certain patterns can also be on the shape. After the mold is closed, the holder is removed and a blowing device is inserted into the drop. It, like a balloon, inflates the drop from the inside with compressed air and the mass acquires the desired shape. Excess molten glass goes back to its original shape.

By the way, to give the glass some color or shade, certain substances are added to the charge, for example, iron or chromium oxide is added to give green color, copper oxide for blue, and so on.

Now almost finished goods move along a heated conveyor so that there is no sharp temperature drop and the product does not crack. From this conveyor, the loading machine moves the products into a lehr, along which they move slowly and gradually cool down. Here they are treated with a special solution that allows them to glide and move smoothly. And they move on to the testing and packaging line. After going through all the stages, we get the finished product.

How art glass products are made

Artistic glass products are all made from the same glass mass. In the production of such products, the same furnace is still used, but only the temperature for manufacturing is slightly lower than industrial, about 1200 degrees. The product itself is made by glassblowers. Glassblowers are like jewelers for glass, they can work alone or in pairs or even more.

With the help of a long tube, the glass masters take out required amount hot glass directly from the oven and immediately begin to shape it various methods while periodically blowing through the tube. In the process, it will be possible to add more material, for example, for any additional details. Very small details are made separately, also by different methods.

After forming the details and the general shape of the product, it is placed in another kiln for a day. As a rule, the temperature in the heated state is about 400 degrees, at night such a furnace is turned off and the products in it gradually cool down to 70 degrees, where they harden and harden.