EXHIBIT No. 112 THE MANUFACTURE OF BOTTLES [Prepared by the Department of Justice for the use of the Temporary National Economic Committee] MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE JOSEPH C. O'MAHONEY, Senator from Wyoming, Chairman. HATTON W. SUMNERS, Representative from Texas, Vice Chairman. *WENDELL BERGE, Special Assistant to the Attorney General. WILLIAM E. BORAH, Senator from Idaho. WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS, Chairman. *JEROME N. FRANK, Commissioner. Representing the Securities and Exchange Commission. EDWARD C. EICHER, Representative from Iowa. GARLAND S. FERGUSON, Chairman. *EWIN L. DAVIS, Commissioner. Representing the Federal Trade Commission. WILLIAM H. KING, Senator from Utah. ISADOR LUBIN, Commissioner of Labor Statistics. *A. FORD HINRICHS, Chief Economist, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Representing the Department of Labor. HERMAN OLIPHANT, General Counsel. *CHRISTIAN JOY PEOPLES, Director of Procurement. • Alternates. LEON HENDERSON, Executive Secretary. THE MANUFACTURE OF BOTTLES Preliminary Statement. This statement has been prepared by the Department of Justice for use in connection with its study of patent practices in the glass container industry. It contains (1) a description of the process of manufacturing glass containers and (2) certain general economic facts with respect to the glasscontainer industry in the United States. The testimony which it is expected will be elicited in the hearings before the Committee will, in many instances, relate to the various steps in the process of manufacturing glass containers and will involve the use of terms peculiar to the technology of that process. It is believed that the explanation of the process of manufacture and the diagrams and pictures contained herein may be of material assistance in following the testimony. Process of Manufacture.-Until the turn of the century, bottles and other glass containers were made exclusively by hand-a process which was one of the most highly skilled manual arts employed in large-scale industrial production. In the first step of the hand-blown process, the glass blower dipped the end of his PONTIL, sometimes called the "PUNTY" (a five-foot hollow steel tube), into a tank of molten glass (Fig. 1). Rapidly revolving the pontil, he gathered a mass or GOB of molten glass on its end, withdrew it from the furnace, and blew through the tube, thus forming an enlarging bubble. By swinging, twirling, and rolling the bulbous mass on a Marver, or flat slab, the glass was worked into a hollow, pearshaped form, hanging in suspension from the pontil. This partly shaped mass then was lowered into a hinged iron MOLD, which was closed around it, and the glass was blown up to its completed shape within the mold. The transition from this age-old handblown art to automatic machine methods was quite sudden. About 1905 MICHAEL J. OWENS, a glass-blower, had developed a successful and fully automatic machine for blowing bottles (Fig. 2). It could produce more than 30,000 bottles every 24 hours as compared with the six or eight hundred which a skilled handblower could turn out in an exhausting day's work. For the common varieties of glass containers the principal raw materials are sand, soda ash, and limestone, though broken glass, called CULLET, generally is added to the mixture. These materials are melted in a FURNACE or TANK (Fig. 3). The mixture of raw materials is fed into the hottest, or melting, portion of the furnace, flows slowly into a cooler section of the furnace, and thence by way of a channel to the place from which it will be fed to the bottle-making machine. The Owens machine (see Fig. 2) employs the so-called SUCTION PROCESS. Molten glass flows from the cooler section of the tank into a shallow REVOLVING POT. Iron molds mounted on arms radiating from a central pillar revolve so that each mold, during a part of its revolution, passes over the revolving pot. At this point the mold lowers itself until the open end touches the pool of molten glass, sucks up a CHARGE of glass, rises and moves on. As it rises, a knife slides across the bottom of the mold, closing it and cutting the glass off from that in the pool. The upper part of the cavity in the mold contains a PLUG against which the charge has been forced, thus forming the opening which later becomes the neck of the bottle (Fig. 4). In this manner the charge of glass has been shaped into a preliminary form known as the PARISON, which roughly approximates the shape of the finished bottle. This mold, termed the PARISON MOLD, then divides and withdraws and another mold, called the FINISHING MOLD, comes into place around the parison or embryo bottle which is hanging by its lip or neck. Thereupon the parison is blown into its completed shape within the finishing mold (Fig. 5). At this point in its revolution the arm passes over a CONVEYOR On which the bottle is deposited. The parison mold then swings back into operating position, to dip into the pool of molten glass once more. The machine may consist of from six to sixteen arms depending upon the type of ware to be produced and the speed of operation desired. |