Wire Glass

WIRE GLASS. Wire glass is simply a combina tion of wire and glass for use in large buildings like railway stations, where a single wide-arched roof must span an enormous area, and the lighting must be chiefly in this roof. It is also used for ordinary windows in exposed locations, as a precaution against fire or other accident, as the iron of which the netting is composed has a higher fusing-point than the glass in which it is imbedded. When exposed to fire it will retain its shape and hold the glass together even after the latter has become plastic. A wire-glass window forms an admirable fire-screen, and in many cases is a great protection. Ordinary glass panes in a roof are in danger of breaking and falling, and the object sought by the inventor of wire glass was to secure a material at once lighter and stronger than the ordinary glazed roof windows. The first practical and com mercially successful process was patented by Frank Shuman in 1892, and the following year he was awarded a premium by the Franklin In stitute for the invention. In the Shuman process

a very long cast-iron table is set in the floor and heated by gas-flames from beneath. Over this the molten glass is poured. The woven wire netting is heated nearly as hot as the molten glass. A vehicle holding four rollers and feeding out the red-hot wire is now rolled over the table on a track, one rail of which is on each edge of the table. The first roller smooths and spreads the glass, the second presses deep into the glass the wire netting which slides down an inclined iron table before the roller, the third and fourth rollers complete the process of smoothing and hardening. Wire glass is not readily damaged by vibrations, and is hail-proof. Its strength enables it to support great weights of snow and to resist flying particles that would break through ordinary glass.