Machine drawn cylinder sheet was the first mechanical method for "drawing" window

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

. Cylinders of glass 40 feet (12 m) high are drawn vertically from a circular tank. The glass is then annealed and cut into 7 to 10 foot (2 to 3 m) cylinders. These are cut lengthways, reheated, and flattened. This process was invented in the US in 1903. This type of glass was manufactured in the early 20th century (it was manufactured in the United Kingdom by Pilkingtons from 1910 to 1933). Other historical methods for making window glass included broad sheet, blown plate, crown glass,

polished plate Polished plate is a type of hand-made glass. It is produced by casting glass onto a table and subsequently grinding and polishing the glass. This was originally done by hand, and then later by machine. It was an expensive process requiring a large c ...

and

cylinder blown sheet Cylinder blown sheet is a type of hand- blown window glass. It is created with a similar process to broad sheet, but with the use of larger cylinders. In this manufacturing process glass is blown into a cylindrical shape by a glass blower. The en ...

. These methods of manufacture lasted at least until the end of the 19th century. The early 20th century marks the move away from hand-blown to machine manufactured glass such as rolled plate, flat drawn sheet, single and twin ground polished plate and

float glass Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal of a low melting point, typically tin, although lead was used for the process in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and a very flat surfa ...

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* Glass production {{Glass-engineering-stub