Abstract: Thin resistance wires are deposited in curved form on a thermoplastic film for the manufacture of a car glazing which can be electrically heated. The thermoplastic film is kept by vacuum on the surface of a cylindrical drum having a perforated cylindrical wall. The drum is rotated and the wire deposited and fixed on the film with the aid of a wire deposition apparatus. The wire deposition apparatus is mounted on a carriage able to move parallel to the longitudinal axis of the drum. The carriage is driven by means of a moving screw rotated by a drive motor. The drive motor is controlled by a processor via a regulating amplifier controlled by the processor in accordance with a time-travel program established in accordance with the desired curved shape of the wires.

Abstract: An electrically heatable laminated glass glazing includes an inner glass sheet, an outer glass sheet and an intermediate thermoplastic film interconnecting the two glass sheets. Collector conductors constituted by foil strips serve as power supply conductors for heating resistors are embedded in the intermediate film from the side adjacent to the inner glass sheet. The free surface of the inner glass sheet is provided with a decorative frame of an opaque baking ink. An opaque coating, whose color is adapted to that of the decorative frame, is joined to the surface of the foil strip directed towards the intermediate film. The coating is preferably constituted by an inked polymer sheet having a width slightly greater than that of the foil strip.

Abstract: In a method and apparatus for bending glass plates, the glass plates are heated in a horizontal position in a continuous furnace (1) to the bending temperature and in a following bending chamber (5) are pressed by an upwardly flowing hot gas stream against a convex bending mold (7) positioned above the conveying plane. The bent glass plates (3') are placed on a displaceable shaping ring (13) and transferred with the latter into a following cooling station (16). The glass plates (3) are raised from the conveying roller train (2) of the continuous furnace (1) by a suction plate (3) are positioned relative to the transfer ring (28) on the latter. With the aid of the transfer ring (28) the glass plates (3) are transferred into the bending chamber, where in the end position of the transfer ring (28) they assume the desired end position relative to the bending mold (7).

Abstract: A device for laying a thin metal wire in a straight line on the surface of the thermoplastic film of a laminated glass pane. A rotatable mounting is provided for the wire supply reel, a heated pressing roller presses the wire into the thermoplastic film and a guide device guides the wire between the supply reel and the pressing roller. The supply reel is coupled in rotation to an electromagnetic brake having an adjustable braking torque and a wide control range for the braking torque. The electromagnetic brake is preferably a magnetic powder brake.

Abstract: In a method for bending glass plates, the glass plates are heated in a horizontal position in a continuous furnace (1) to the bending temperature and in a following bending chamber (5) are pressed by an upwardly flowing hot gas stream against a convex bending mold (7) positioned above the conveying plane. The bent glass plates (3') are placed on a displaceable shaping ring (13) and transferred with the latter into a following cooling station (16). The glass plates (3) are raised from the conveying roller train (2) of the continuous furnace (1) by a suction plate (3) are positioned relative to the transfer ring (28) on the latter. With the aid of the transfer ring (28) the glass plates (3) are transferred into the bending chamber, where in the end position of the transfer ring (28) they assume the desired end position relative to the bending mold (7).

Abstract: The subject of this invention is a method of making a curved glass pane of laminated glass, such as an automobile windshield, in which one of the two single glass sheets is provided, on the surface bearing against an intermediate layer, with a film of a baking finish. The baking finish is applied onto the inner face of the single glass sheet intended for the outside. The glass sheet, provided with the dried baking finish (i.e., a colored film), is laid, with the film upwards, onto the single glass sheet intended for the inside. The pair of glass sheets, in this arrangement, is prebent on a bending frame with simultaneous baking-in of the colored film. Subsequently, the two glass sheets are transposed and, in this transposed arrangement with the colored film on the inside, are finally bent in a second bending operation on a bending frame corresponding to the final shape of the outer sheet.

Abstract: A continuous furnace (straight-through furnace) for heating glass panes to their curving and/or toughening temperature is constructed as a circular furnace and comprises an annular, horizontal hot gas support bed (3). On this annular hot gas support bed (3) the glass panes are carried, each by means of a template (56) of heat-resistant metal plate, also floating on the hot gas support bed (3), in a circuit from the feed station (6) to the discharge station (7). The templates (56) are each mounted on the arms (17) of a star-type turntable (16) concentrically to the support bed (3). At the discharge station (7) the glass panes, heated to bending and/or toughening temperature, are removed from the furnace by means of a radially traversable suction plate (42) and transferred into a bending and/or toughening device disposed laterally alongside the furnace.

Abstract: The invention relates to a heat conditioning chamber for controlled cooling following a high-temperature treatment of plane thin glass sheets, transported in horizontal position by a continuously driven roller conveyor. According to the invention, in the hottest zone in the chamber, the cooling is performed solely by absorption of radiation and continues in other zones by convection.

Abstract: A bending furnace for glazings comprises several heating cells, a station for bending by pressing, at least one cooling cell and a system for intermittent transport of glazings. The glazings are laid on bending rings (2), mounted on mobile carriages (3), coupled to one another in a train. The train is pulled by a pulling machine installed at the end of the furnace and outside the latter. The point of application of the pulling machine which moves carriages (3) and the length of the travel of this pulling machine are controlled as a function of the temperature to take into account the variation of length of the train. The precise positioning of the carriage in the pressing station is obtained by a detector (27) joined to pivoting stops (28, 36).

Abstract: A device for air-tempering, optionally associated with bending of glass plates includes a covering made of a metal fabric and exhibiting a thermal conductivity less than 3 and preferably less than 0.2 W.M.sup.-1.K.sup.-1. It has utility for coverings of frames intended to carry glass plates during their tempering and/or their bending and/or their transport.

Abstract: In an apparatus for bending glass panes in a horizontal position, comprising an upper bending mold and a lower frame-shaped mold, the bending force exerted by the bending mold is determined by the self-weight of the bending mold. In order that a uniform pressure shall be exerted by the upper bending mold on the entire periphery of the lower frame-shaped mold, the upper bending is mounted displaceable on its guide rods relative to them in a vertical direction and variable in its angular position relative to the guide rods. To achieve the desired relief of weight of the bending mold, the guide rods are suspended by cables from a frame which can be lowered. On the frame, hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders are disposed, which each exert, via a pulling cable acting on a guide rod, an adjustable force in the opposite direction to the self-weight of the bending mold.

Abstract: Glazings are preshaped before putting them through a step of tempering by contact. In a preferred variant, tempering by contact is applied only the central area of the glazing and the marginal zone thereof is tempered by blowing cold air.

Abstract: A ceramic transport shaft for a furnace includes a ceramic shaft member and a metal end cap into which an end of the shaft member is fitted with an annular gap between the shaft member and the end cap. A sleeve fills the gap. The shaft member, the end cap and the sleeve have such linear thermal coefficients of expansion, and the wall of the sleeve has such a radial thickness, that a change in the radial size of the gap due to thermal expansion of the shaft member and the end cap is at least equalled by a change in the radial thickness of the sleeve wall. The sleeve has one or more axial slots to absorb the circumferential expansion thereof during heating.

Abstract: A lower blow box of a device for heat tempering glass sheets in horizontal position exhibits a series of nozzle plates which are placed at a distance (A) from one another. Between nozzle plates there are obliquely placed sheet-metal chutes, U-shaped in cross section, which laterally convey out the broken glass pieces arising in the breaking of the glass sheet during tempering. The sheet-metal chutes are vibrated with a vibrator.

Abstract: A process and device for obtaining bent-tempered motor vehicle glazings exhibiting a greatly bent marginal zone comprises a glass sheet heated in a furnace and shaped by pressing the glass sheet between a solid upper form and a bending frame, of which at least one side part is bent during pressing. The side part is covered with an elastically deformable felt material and is removed from the glass sheet during tempering, while the main part of the glass sheet remains supported by the bending frame which also serves as a tempering frame.

Abstract: In an installation for bending glass panes, the glass panes are heated to bending temperature in a horizontal once-through furnace. At the end of the once-through furnace, they are taken over by an endless conveyor belt and are conveyed by this conveyor belt into the bending station, where they are bent together with the conveyor belt. The bent glass pane is conveyed of the conveyor belt into the succeeding cooling or tempering station. In order to support the bent glass pane over the largest possible area, an upper deflector roll for the conveyor belt, disposed at the exit end from the bending station, has a form corresponding to the transverse bend of the glass pane. A lower deflector roll, following the upper deflector roll, has a form complementary to the form of the upper deflector roll. In this way the relative changes in length of the conveyor belt caused by the upper deflector roll are compensated.

Abstract: A device for tempering of a glazing by contact has two cooled compression plates and a device for cooling the peripheral surface of the glazing by air jets. The device intended to cool peripheral surfaces of the glazing consists of parallelepipedic blowing ramps placed between cooling and compression plates and in which are provided slots for the cooling air jets directed toward the peripheral surface of the glazing, and exhaust openings placed between the slots. The slots have a diameter at least equal to 1 mm and at most equal to the thickness of the glazings, and the exhaust openings having a cross section which is at least three times that of slots. The dimensions of the cooling and compression plates, as well as arrangement and/or width (B) of the ramps are such that a distance (A) between the orifices of outlet slots and peripheral surface of glazing which is opposite to it is at least two times and at most six times the diameter of the slots.

Abstract: An apparatus for producing two-dimensionally bent and optionally tempered glass plates includes a roller oven (1), a pressing and bending station (2) and a cooling station (3). A lower male mold-like, full surface bending mold (10) with two-dimensionally shaped bending surface is arranged in the pressing and bending station (2). The top surface of the bending surface of the bending mold (10) is located in the conveying plane defined by the conveying rollers (5). The wall of the bending mold (10) forming the bending surface is provided with bores (14), which can be supplied with hot gas for forming a hot gas cushion. After positioning the glass plate (4) on the hot gas cushion, the female mold-like frame bending mold (11) is lowered onto the glass plate (4). The bent glass plate slides on the hot gas cushion into the cooling station (3).

Abstract: Glass plates are bent by discharging a glass plate from a suction plate onto a concave circumferential bending ring. Within the furnace (1) the glass plate is gripped by the suction plate (27) and is moved with the latter out of the furnace (1) into a combined bending and tempering station (10) and is discharged there onto the circumferential bending ring (19) located between two blowing boxes (11,13). Immediately following the discharge of the flass plate onto the circumferential bending ring (19), the suction plate (27) moves back to its starting position and the glass plate is tempered in this position.

Abstract: An apparatus for bending and tempering glass plates has a horizontal roller furnace (3) and a press bending station with two water-cooled bending molds (6,7) through whose contact the glass plates are tempered immediately following bending. At the outlet from the roller furnace (3), the glass plates (1) are taken over by a continuous flexible conveyor belt (10) and are conveyed by the latter into the bending station. During the press process the glass plate remains on the conveyor belt, which is interposed between the glass plate (1) and the lower bending mold (7). The conveyor belt (10) is made from a woven or knitted fabric of heat-resistant metal fibers and, in a direction at right angles to its surface, has a heat resistivity of 0.25.times.10.sup.-3 to 5.times.10.sup.-3 m.sup.2 .times.K.times.W.sup.-1.