How A Glass Bottle Is Made

A bottle is deciphered as an unyielding container which has a neck, a body and mouth. The neck is more slender than the body. Historical books have indicated that it was the Phoenicians who first fashioned glass bottles, mainly to store perfume or other fragrant liquid compositions. The Phoenicians then taught the Romans the fine art of making glass bottles, and they manufactured many versions for various uses.

The production of bottles made of glass is of two categories, from sheet glass and from glass- container glass. Modern bottle plants break down their operations into 3 major parts: –

i) The batch house takes care of all raw materials

ii) The hot end handles the manufacturing side of ovens, furnaces and forming machines

iii) The cold end takes care of inspection and packaging

When the batch house has sorted through all the raw materials, the hot end process takes over by forming the molten glass into respective containers. Each batch is fed into the furnace at rates which are controlled, depending on the glass composition.

To produce glass bottles, modern plants use two methods, either by the blow and blow process or the press and blow technique. Both these progressions involve the cutting of a stream of molten glass with a clipping blade to form glass cylinders, known as gob. Blank moulds are filled with gob, which falls delicately into the moulds through chutes and troughs. Utilising the blow and blow process, the glass is primarily blown from underneath into the blank moulds to manufacture a pre-container, or pre-bottle. This pre-container is then turned over into a last mould. A concluding blow is rendered, and the glass is made into its designed shape. In the press and blow method, the pre-bottle is shaped with a plunger made of metal. It thrusts the glass out into the blank mould.

Now comes the forming machines which hold and shifts the components that structures the bottle. These bottles are made via time-coordinated movements by machines which are motorized by compressed air.

When the forming process concludes, these bottles (especially the ones determined for alcoholic spirits) go through a treatment method to improve chemical conflicts. As the bottles of glass cool, they will proceed to reduce in size and become hardened. If glass bottles are not cooled evenly, they will break easily. To evenly cool glass bottles, they are fed into an annealing oven or lehr.

The glass bottles are now ready for the cold end process, or inspection route. Glass bottles are examined thoroughly for any number of shortcomings from cracks to foreign additions. Next comes the labeling process. Labels are placed using screen printing or in some cases, using vitreous enamel paint which is baked on the glass bottle. The original major soda company bottles used this method.

The glass bottles are now ready to be packaged and shipped, by methods of bulk pallets, boxed or packed in hand-sewn bags. Each package is given specific labels and warehoused. Glass bottles can be recycled and Governments of many countries impose a high price on cullet to ensure equal return rates. Glass bottles can be reused, and practiced in many developing countries.

Tagged as: Bottle, Glass, Made