A fibre with a high safe working temperature is said to have been produced at Gerresheim from the residue from shale oil distillation retorts.
(iii) Optical Glass.
A process of casting optical glass had been developed at Zwiesel.
(g) Grinding and Polishing
The greater part of the polished Plate glass produced is ground and polished by the Disc process. One works (Herzogenrath) has two continuous machines. Sheet glass (at DELOG) is ground and polished on small rotating tables of fixed position. A great deal of repolishing is done, most Plate Glass Works possessing repolishing sections attached to their grinding and polishing departments.
(h) Auxiliary Processes
(i) Toughening
Only one glass producing Works (Herzogenrath) has a toughening department and this is badly damaged. There are several Works which treat bought Plate glass (e.g. there is one in Aachen) but these were not visited.
(ii) Bending
Many intermittent bending kilns were seen and also a number of kilns built specially for bending searchlight circles.
(iii) Silvering
Both hot and cold processes were in operation but on an intermittent basis.
(iv) Pressing
Two works (Grünenplan and Mitterteich) have large departments for the mass production of pressed lenses.
(i) Warehousing
In one or two Sheet Glass works the Warehouses were the most recently erected buildings, built to take glass by monorail straight from the cutting-off floor. The lay-out generally favoured appeared to be examination along the sides of the rooms, utilising daylight from windows, with packing down the centre.
Since none of the Plate Glass Works were working, no actual routine examination of Plate Glass was seen but the facilities were of the simplest.
Some Warehouses had chutes for taking cullet from the cutters' tables; others had boxes readily handled by two men. In some cases the cullet was weighed.
Packages in most Works were of a simple frame design, wood wool being a common packing material.
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