The Fourcault Process

After trials of mechanical cylinder blowing (USA, the Lubbers process), the first patent for the totally mechanical drawing of glass was awarded in 1901 to the engineers Gobbe and Fourcault. Created in the glassworks of the latter in Dampremy, it was to be used internationally after the First World War.

The glass is drawn upwards from a tank furnace and cooled gradually on its way to a drawing pit.

All that is required in the process are a worker to hold the sheet that comes out and another to cut it with a diamond. The patent was to be improved in the United States under the name " The Pittsburg Process ".

A variant on the Fourcault model, the Libbey-Owens process appeared in 1915 in the USA. All these processes were later replaced by float-glass.