Precise batches of colorant key to consistent colored glass
To improve colored glass production, a Ford Motor Company glass plant installed feeders that deliver precise batches.
The Ford Motor Co. glass plant in Tulsa, Okla., makes colored and clear flat glass for the automotive and architectural markets. Ford started making colored glass in 1979 and produces bronze, gray, blue, and green glass. The soda-lime glass Ford makes is 50 percent sand and also contains soda and lime. The other ingredients, called micro-ingredients, include carbocite [charcoal], which aids melting, and colorants, which are used with a clearing agent for colored glass.