Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1893 — Bottle Blowing by Machinery, [ARTICLE]

Bottle Blowing by Machinery,

At the present time the eyes of the bottle-making world are also turned toward New Jersey for another reason. Their glance centers upon Woodbury, for in that quiet village the destiny of bottle-blower may be said to be on trial. The Ashley bottle-making machine has been set in operation to see if it cannot do the work of human hands and lungs, and do it better and more economically. The machine was described before the British Association in 1880, when it was stated that bottles had been made by the machine, quite complete, which had successfully been subjected to an internal pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch. The career of the machine in England, we believe, has been most unfortunate, but this docs not at all diminish the interest which its introduction into America has excited. The advantages to be gained by the use of such a machine are much too solid to permit small obstacles to hinder its success. The trial run at Woodbury has been fairly successful. The automatic principle has not been developed to the full extent in these machines, but it has been carried so far that one man and three boys—none of them necesssarily skilled glass-blowers—can operate two machines, each of which is capable of turning out two bottles a minute. The machine does not gather the glass. One of the boys, the “gatherer,” Is .specially detailed for that service. He feeds the molten “metal” to the machine, in which it is mechanically moulded, the neck and mouth formed, the interior blown by means of compressed air, and the finished bottle automatically delivered to a carrier which takes it to the annealing oven. There is undoubted room for improvement both in the performance and capacity of the machines. But the important step has been taken, and bottles have really been made in this country by machinery.—fPoDular Science Monthly.