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Continuous Glass Fibre Strand Drawn from a Platinum Bushing
Glass fibre for cloth is not spun like wool: hundreds of fine filaments are pulled at once from small nozzles in a hot platinum box and wound up as one strand. This is the method of Slayter and Thomas's Owens-Corning patent (US 2,234,986, 1941): an electrically heated platinum-rhodium thimble melts glass cullet, a blower freezes each filament just below its nozzle, a size is put on, and a drum pulls and winds the strand. The faster the drum, the finer the fibre.
The picture: a glass fibre roving (NoiseD, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Advanced
1 day
Instructions
1
1
Charge the bushing with cullet
Charge the bushing with cullet
Fill the platinum-rhodium thimble (90 % platinum, 10 % rhodium) with broken soda-lime glass. Its floor has rows of staggered nipples .02–.08 in (0.5–2 mm) wide; .04 in (1 mm) is best.
Materials for this step:
Soda-Lime Glass Cullet1 as requiredTools needed:
Platinum-Rhodium Bushing
Heat-Resistant Gloves
Safety Glasses2
2
Melt it with an electric current
Melt it with an electric current
Pass an adjustable current through the thimble to melt the glass. Ordinary lime glass is pulled from about 2,100–2,500 °F (about 1,150–1,370 °C).
Tools needed:
Platinum-Rhodium Bushing
Step-Down Transformer
PyrometerHeat-Resistant Gloves3
3
Start the cooling blower
Start the cooling blower
Blow cool air across the nipple tips from a blower a short distance below them. Each filament sets within a small fraction of an inch of its nipple.
Tools needed:
Air Blower4
4
Gather the filaments through a sized guide
Gather the filaments through a sized guide
Draw all the filaments together through one guide eye kept wet with size. Here the size is wax, kept molten with a burner; the patent also names oil, starch, gum and resin. An air jet dries off the excess size.
Materials for this step:
Paraffin Wax1 as requiredTools needed:
Bunsen BurnerAir Blower5
5
Pull and wind on a drum
Pull and wind on a drum
Wind the strand on a fast drum that moves back and forth so it lays evenly. Draw at a few hundred to a few thousand feet per minute: the faster you draw, the finer the fibre.
Tools needed:
Take-Up DrumMaterials
2- 1 as requiredPlaceholder
- 1 as requiredPlaceholder
Tools Required
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