Few U. S. industries are livelier, more ingenious than the glass industry. Two of its most important divisions are bottle glass and flat glass. The bottle division continually wars with the tin-can industry over the packaging of products. Glass-packed coffee marked a glass advance; canned beer was a victory for tin. The flat glass division, having no outside industry to contend with, has spent its time in the improvement of its product. Most important modern development has been safety glass for automobiles. Invisible glass, flexible glass, heat-proof glass and bullet-proof glass have been more spectacular but less substantial inventions. Glass news last week included:
Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co. of Toledo reported 1935 earnings of $8,167,000 compared to $3,161,000 in 1934. Like many another 1935 recovery, the improvement in Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co. depended largely on the 1935 boom in the motor industry. Libbey-Owens-Ford and Pittsburgh Plate Glass make some 90% of U. S. plate glass. They split this lion's share about evenly, 'but Libbey-Owens-Ford is the leader in safety glass production. Safety glass is made by sticking two ordinary sheets of glass together with a plastic binder. When struck, safety glass shatters like ordinary glass, but the binder holds the pieces in place, prevents flying fragments. Libbey-Owens-Ford sells so much safety glass for motor cars that it is almost an automobile accessory company. In 1931, it paid General Motors $10,000,000 for GM's glassmaking subsidiary, since then has supplied practically all General Motors glass. It also supplies about 50% of the glass in Ford cars, but part of this business will be lost when Henry Ford's own glass factory is completed sometime this year.
All motor car windshields are now made of safety glass and 21 states compel the use of safety glass in all passenger car windows. Libbey-Owens-Ford makes about 50% of U. S. window glass, but the window business has languished throughout Depression. Even in 1934, however, the company's window trade increased 41% over 1933. Should a real building boom materialize in 1936, what was once Libbey-Owens-Ford's only business will again become a major item.
Libbey-Owens-Ford (along with Pittsburgh Plate) also manufactures invisible glass. Invisible glass is not really invisible, but when properly set up in a show window it does produce the illusion of invisibility. If glass were a perfect transmitter of light, all glass would be invisible. But glass is not perfectly transparent. Some of the light rays which strike it are reflected back to the eye of the observer. Invisible glass is curved in such a way that the reflected light is sent upwards and downwards into black velvet pads which completely absorb it. Since no light gets back to the observer, the glass cannot be seen. The invisible glass system now in use was developed in England by E. Pollard & Co. Its U. S. patents are held by Invisible Glass Co. of America, of which Libbey-Owens-Ford and Pittsburgh Plate are licensees.