Britain: Pilkington Shines Again

Glassmakers of ancient Venice maintained world superiority quite simply: craftsmen caught spiriting trade secrets out of Venice were made galley slaves or killed by hired assassins. In the modern world of sheet glass, Britain's Pilkington Brothers, Ltd., maintains a comparable superiority in a more humane way: the company consistently outdoes rivals in research and development.

Pilkington, sole survivor of the 24 glassworks that thrived in Britain in the 19th century and then died because of competition, made its first major contribution to the industry in 1935 by developing a grinder that smoothed both sides of the glass simultaneously — until recently the common method for finishing flat glass. But grinding scoured off 20% of the finished glass, and something better was needed. In 1959, after seven years and $20 million worth of research, Pilkington announced a float process for making sheet and plate glass that revolutionized the industry. In it, glass forms while floating on a surface of molten tin, and there is no need to polish it afterward. Float glass, moreover, has less distortion than glass made by earlier processes.

Last week Pilkington informed customers of another advance: it can now make tinted glass by the same float process with considerable savings in time and capital expense. Up to now, when glassmakers wanted to produce tints—even with a float process—they either had to shut down and convert regular lines or else build an additional plant. Under the new method, which cost $2.8 million to research and perfect, machines bombard the molten glass with microscopic metallic particles as it passes across the tin bath. With an investment of only $36,000, glassmakers can add the tinting process to a regular plant, color as much as desired bt the continuous ribbon of glass. Says Sir Harry Pilkington, 62, chairman of the 141-year-old family-owned company: "We already knew that our float process leads the world in the manufacture of this type of glass. As a result of our new discovery, we hope demand will increase enormously."

Pilkington's original float process-developed by Chief Researcher Alastair Pilkington, Sir Harry's cousin—was so successful that glass companies in eleven nations rushed to obtain licenses for it, including the Soviet Union and such U.S. glassmakers as Libbey-Owens-Ford, Pittsburgh Plate Glass and the Ford Motor Co. Eventually, Pilkington expects to earn about $240 million annually from the float process in license fees, royalties and exports: the new tint process will add another $24 million a year to that. Meanwhile controlling 85% of British glassmaking and exporting its own products to 100 nations around the world, Pilkington foresees a future as shiny as a piece of newly hardened plate.