Government Issues Data on Glass Bottle Industry; Homer Brooke Flowing Device Mentioned

GOVERNMENT ISSUES DATA ON GLASS BOTTLE INDUSTRY.

The following interesting chapter on the making of glass bottles is found in a voluminous and very complete report on the glass industry of the United States just issued by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of Commerce.

The investigation of this industry was begun in January, 1916, and was completed in May of this year.

The report on bottles covers the development of the industry from the opening of the nineteenth century and details the introduction of machinery up to the perfected machines and devices now in use:

Early Nineteenth Century Product.- From about 1808 to 1870 an important branch of the glass industry was the manufacture of fancy pocket flasks and bottles. These were blown in engraved metal molds. The early bottles had mouths cut with shears when in a plastic or soft condition, which resulted in a rimless, irregular edge. The base has a circular sear made where the bottles were broken from the punty rod which held it fast while workmen finished the neck. Later this scar was removed from the finer products by grinding. In the fifties a "snap" was used to hold the bottle, which came from the mold with a smooth hollow base. A rim or beading formed by a "tool' was also added to the mouth. All the early bottles were green in color and it was not until 1861 that flint glass was used for prescription bottles.

Beginning of the Shop System.- In order to increase production there was introduced in bottle factories about 1870 what is known as the "shop system." Instead of the single blower, who previous to this time had produced the entire bottles, three men "the shop" worked together, two of them gathering and blowing while the third made the neck smooth and otherwise finished the bottle. The average output of bottles for each gang of three men working together in this way is 275 to 300 dozen per day; in the case of especially expert men the day's work is often much larger. Formerly, the single blower, working with only the mold-shutting and snapping-up boys' help, was regarded as having produced a very good day's work when he made 40 or 42 dozen per day. The "shop system" is still in vogue in plants where bottles are made by hand.

Machinery.- Ashleigh, an Englishman, made the first automatic bottle machine, but it was unsuccessful for narrow-neck bottles, because only a small percentage of the ware had a good enough neck to be marketable. In 1882 the process of prepressing a blank, forming the neck in the pressing operation, then transferred the neck to a blow mold and blowing it into the finished form by compressed air was invented by Arbogast, of Pittsburg.

There are three methods of making wide-mouth bottles under the Arbogast patent. By the first the pressed blank is transferred from the blank mold to the blow mold and blown by means of a disk with a handle to which compressed air, controlled by a stop-cock, is fed through a rubber hose. Later, to increase production, the blank and blow molds were mounted on separate revolving tables. By the second method the blank mold is telescoped into the blow mold against the shoulder forming the neck. This system was invented by Windmill, of England, and was used successfully for fruit jars, but legal entanglements and litigation caused manufacturers to discard it. The third method consists in pressing the blank in the blank mold.

In 1886 a machine was perfected which, though commercially successful, was somewhat crude and restricted to the making of wide-mouth bottles and jars. This machine was not automatic.

Since about 1900 any number of bottle making machines that required one, two or three skilled operators have appeared on the market; these machines are usually designated as one, two or three man machines. In 1900 a two-man machine for making wide-mouth bottles was invented. Shortly after the automatic machine was introduced, there appeared on the market the "Johnny Bull," or United, an English three-man machine for narrow-mouth bottles. In 1908 there appeared a three-man machine for wide-mouth bottles, in 1912 a one-man machine for wide-mouth bottles, and in 1914 a one-man machine for narrow-neck bottles.

Owens Automatic Machine.- In 1903 the Owens automatic machine, invented by M. J. Owens, of Toledo, was introduced commercially. The machine revolutionized the entire bottle making industry, and since its introduction has greatly increased the standard of efficiency in the bottle manufacturing plants of the United States and has made possible the gradual reduction in the price of bottles that has been noted during the years since its invention.

The first Owens machine that appeared on the market had six arms; the latest type of machine has 15 arms. Improvements have been made so that today practically any kind or shape of bottle from one-tenth of an ounce to 13 gallons in capacity can be made upon some one of the four types of Owens machines.

The operating speed of the 15-arm machine is indicated by the fact that more than 75,000 quart fruit jars are manufactured by a single machine in a 24-hour day. The machine is entirely automatic, gathering its own glass and blowing the bottle, and when an automatic conveyor is used, delivering it to the lehr without the touch of a worker's hand. The machine can run for 24 hours a day and every day in the year.

The machine is very costly, and the special equipment necessary to operate it makes the initial outlay exceedingly large. This fact, together with a serious dobut [sic] doubt as to the machine's competitive ability, kept manufactures from installing it generally. Prior to 1908 the Owens machine was restricted almost exclusively to licensing on a basis of royalty. In that year, however, the Owens people began the manufacture of bottles. In a report by President Libbey, of the Owens Bottle Machine Co., 1916, he states that, exclusive of the plants controlled by the Owens Bottle Machine Co., there are 15 factories operating 114 machines and having a normal annual production of over 850,000,000 bottles. There are installed in the United States at present six 15-arm, 97 ten-arm, 87 six-arm and one special machine.

The Owens European patents were sold in 1907, to a European combination controlled by German shareholders, for 12,000,000 marks, The first three Owens machines were sold in Europe in 1908, and there now 60 to 70 machines in use. It is significant that Japanese capitalists, despite the cheap hand labor to be had in that country, have purchased the Owens Japanese patents and are now installing the most modern Owens machines.

Flowing Device.- From the time of the ancient Egyptian glass blowers up to 1903, when a patent for a flowing device was issued to Homer Brooke, and the Owens machine, which gathered its own glass, was commercially introduced, hand gathering was the first step in the process of glass making. Brooke's device consists in permitting the molten glass to flow continuously and freely from the furnace, and then severing this flowing stream below its point of exit from the furnace to obtain the desired unformed molten mass, allowing the severed mass to fall in the mold and supporting the upper portion of the stream, which continues flowing from the furnace until another mold comes into position to receive another mass to be severed.

In hand gathering, which was the universal method up to this time, the glass gathered is usually more than the amount necessary for the required ware. The glass is dropped into the mold and the proper amount has to be cut off by shears or by other means. The Brooke patent accomplished the gathering and cutting automatically.

Previous to Homer Brooke's invention many attempts had been made to do away with hand gathering. Haley devised a machine which manipulated the gathering rod in exactly the same manner as in the hand operation. In 1885 Rylands patented a device (British patent) to start and stop the flow of glass by means of a lever. In 1890 came the Schulze-Berge patent, by which desired quantities of glass were forcibly ejected from the furnace by means of a plunger acting in the furnace or by means of air pressure in the furnace. Eunsen (British patent) started and stopped the flow of glass by means of a revolving cylinder with pockets in its periphery. The difficulty with all these intermittent start-and-stop devices was that the glass adhered to the cut-off device or stopper, or congealed and did not flow. The Brooke patent provided for a continuous flow, thus preventing the glass from congealing.

The advantages claimed from the use of the Brooke patents are greatly increased production, uniform quantities, reduced cost of manufacture and ability to work throughout the hot months, when it is difficult to get hand gatherers to work.

It appears that other manufacturers have been working on flowing and pouring devices since Brooke received his patent, and some claim to have perfected and to be using such systems. There are ten or twelve firms making bottles and jars by the flowing method.