Future of forming
In search of a container forming revolution
I
have often asked myself, and many others, about whether we are going to ever see a fundamentally different automatic glass container forming process. When I say a different process, I mean totally unrecognisable from any of the current two-stage process; whether that be Blow-Blow, Press-Blow, or NarrowNeck-Press-Blow (BB, PB, NNPB). Within these original forming approaches, we have seen some radical mechanisation changes over the years that span about a century now. This was started with the BB process where it was made both by hand and semi-automatically by
people effectively making one bottle at a time, aided by moulds and mouth-blown or using compressed air. They used the power in their arms to open and close the moulds as well as collect the glass. Often requiring two people for each single forming station, if I remember correctly, from seeing the old film footages (I am not that old!). After this original manual two-stage, semi-automatic mechanisation of the forming process, there came the full automation of the process via the rotary machine where the whole machine was rotated around an axis. Maybe his is
where the original 360-degree timing came from, even before the 360-degree drum-driven I.S. Machines? This development of the first automatic machine is attributed to Michael J. Owens from the Libbey Glass Company in Toledo, Ohio, USA. Although the machine was a breakthrough at the time, it was effective in the forming process but suffered from productivity issues as the whole machine would have to be stopped to attend to breakdowns or equipment parts changes. Continued>>
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Peter Firth* highlights the evolution of container glass forming and asks if there will be any further revolutionary changes in the forming process or of the machines that implement it.
23 Glass International July/August 2021
Peter Firth Heye glass futures 1_converted.indd 1
23/08/2021 10:45:35
