The Problems of Cords in Glass

JSGT 1943  V27 T042-T052

Whatever further details may be disclosed during the course of future investigations about the nature and formation of cords in glass, they arise from perfectly natural causes already thoroughly well known to glass technologists, and their prevention is largely in the hands of the glass manufacturer. Yet the examination of this statement will have accomplished a useful object if in the first place it demonstrates the widespread existence of cords, and of the heterogeneous character of most commercial glass in the second, emphasises the great care which must be exercised at every stage in its manufacture if glass is to be satisfactorily uniform in texture throughout. We have, indeed, to drive home the fact that, more and more, the same minute precautions which are applied to the preparation of thoroughly uniform specimens of glass in the laboratory must be brought to bear also on the operation of the commercial furnace, where, even if some factors give rise to less difficulty because of the greater mass of glass dealt with, others for the same reason intensify the difficulty of obtaining uniformity.

W. E. S. Turner