A glass sheet used in the making of an aircraft windshield is shaped using the cut-to-size method instead of the out-after-bend method. In a preferred aspect of the invention the cut-to-size method is practiced using a bending iron having a sheet shaping rail having a stationary shaping rail portion mounted on a support member and an articulating shaping rail portion pivotally mounted on the support member for movement from a non-shaping position to a shaping position.

A glass cutting line includes automatic remnant storage and retrieval including cutting table with integrated squaring stop and y-break breaking bar facilitating sub-plate cutting. The cutting table is configured for sub-plate cutting mode which provides the ability to cut portions of a stock sheet and release the cut portion in the form of a remnant and or individual workpieces to breakout before the entire sheet is finished scoring without the sub-plate leaving the cutting table.

A hot glass sheet processing system includes a conveyor roller support structure (34) located within a heated location (32) and has an elongated cooling unit (36) having a housing (38) defining a cooling chamber (40) that receives and has bearings (42) that rotatably support an aligned set of roller ends (30). The cooling unit includes a cooling circuit that supplies cooling fluid to the cooling chamber (40) to provide cooling of the aligned set of roller ends (30) and the bearings (42).

A hot glass sheet processing system includes a roller conveyor (22) having sintered bonded fused silica rollers (24) and a roller support structure (34) located within a heated location (32) together with an elongated cooling unit (36) having a housing (38) defining a cooling chamber (40) that receives and has bearings (42) that rotatably support an aligned set of roller ends (30) having end caps (86) adhesively bonded to the roller ends. The cooling unit includes a cooling circuit that supplies cooling fluid to the cooling chamber (40) to provide cooling of the aligned set of roller ends (30) and the bearings (42).

A method is provided for corner contouring of flat glass substrates in a continuous feed-through process by a contouring tool. The method includes the steps of: synchronization of the movement of the contouring tool to the continuous feed-through movement of the flat glass substrate, contouring of a corner of the flat glass substrate, wherein a relative movement between the contouring tool and the flat glass substrate is performed so as to overlap the continuous feed-through movement.

A system (10) for forming glass sheets includes a glass location sensing assembly (80) having a fluid switch (82) that is actuated by a roller conveyed glass sheet (G) to control operation of transfer apparatus (69) that transfers the glass sheet from the roller conveyor (22) to a forming mold (48) at a design position for forming. A frame of the sensing assembly (80) supports a carriage (124) on which the fluid switch (82) is mounted for lateral movement with respect to the direction of conveyance of the glass sheet (G) so as to sense its leading extremity. A lateral positioner (130) adjusts the lateral position of the carriage (124) and the fluid switch (82) mounted on the carriage.

The present disclosure provides a positioning foot, a positioning device and a method for correcting position of a glass substrate, and belongs to the technical field of automatic positioning. The positioning foot of the present disclosure comprises: a contact member for contacting a side of the glass substrate; an elastic member, a first end of which is connected with the contact member and receives a counterforce from the glass substrate delivered by the contact member so as to compress the elastic member, and a second end of which is fixed; and a sensor fixed on the second end of the elastic member. Wherein, the contact member is arranged to be displaced with a compression action of the elastic member, and after the contact member is displaced to a predetermined position, the sensor is triggered to be in an ON state such that the elastic member stops the compression action.

A device for bending panes is described. The device has a pre-bending ring, a movable bending ring holder, a final bending ring, a preheating region for preheating at least one pane, a pre-bending region for a further bending of the at least one pane, a heating region for a final bending of an edge of the at least one pane and for a surface pre-bending of the at least one pane, a second bending region for a further surface bending of the at least one pane and a cooling region.

A system (10) for forming glass sheets includes a glass location sensing assembly (80) having a fluid switch (82) that is actuated by a roller conveyed glass sheet (G) to control operation of transfer apparatus (69) that transfers the glass sheet from the roller conveyor (22) to a forming mold (48) at a design position for forming. A frame of the sensing assembly (80) supports a carriage (124) on which the fluid switch (82) is mounted for lateral movement with respect to the direction of conveyance of the glass sheet (G) so as to sense its leading extremity. A lateral positioner (130) adjusts the lateral position of the carriage (124) and the fluid switch (82) mounted on the carriage.

A glass sheet forming system (10) has two parallel forming lines (12) that can utilize any two of three forming stations (18) to provide versatility in use for forming different glass sheet jobs of different sizes and shapes while reducing switchover time from one job to the next.