GB956021A - Glass bending moulds - Google Patents

Abstract

<PICT:0956021/C1/1> <PICT:0956021/C1/2> <PICT:0956021/C1/3> A skeleton type mould having a main mould portion with shaping rails 3 and an end curved rail 7 pivotally mounted to it, half of which is shown in Fig. 1, has glass supporting rails 22 and 23 extending outwardly and upwardly from the rails 3 which present, as the mould closes, a plurality of successive glass support points located longitudinally inwardly of one another. In use a glass sheet 28 is loaded on to the mould in its open position, Fig. 4, and the mould introduced into a bending lehr. During the bending process the rail 7 rises against the glass sheet 28 under the influence of counterweights 20 on arms 19 acting on it through pivots on keyhole slots 12 in plates 11 to which the arms 19 and struts 10, joined to rail 7, are fixed, and the points of support of the rails 22 and 23 move progressively inwards towards end points 26 of rails 3. Towards the end of the bending process the glass sheet 28 comes to rest on the end points 26 and moves out of contact altogether with the rails 22 and 23, the final position being as shown in Fig. 6. In another embodiment, Fig. 7 (not shown), the rail 23 is pivotally mounted to the side rail 3, with similar counter-weighting to that of the rail 7, but with a stop to prevent it rising above the level of the closed position of the rail 7. In a further embodiment the upper surfaces of the rails 3 and 23 are contiguous. The contour of the upper surfaces of the rails 22 and 23 may be varied from that shown in Fig. 4.