Glasstech gets all fired up

Glasstech has developed one of the industry’s leading families of forced convection furnaces, using either natural gas or electric heating.

The Glasstech FCH2 Forced Convection System, fired by natural gas, is the company’s leading system for the efficient tempering of energy-saving Low-E flat glass. Installed at CET and Anglian, Glasstech says this furnace can heat clear glass at a typical rate of 30 seconds per millimeter of thickness and high-performance, soft-coat Low-E glass at a typical rate of 33 seconds per millimeter. This reduced heating time provides for higher quality with less distortion and dramatically improves productivity and reduces processing cost.

The Glasstech ERH2-C3 Architectural Tempering System is the company’s newest convection-assisted radiant electric heater. It utilises hot-air convection nozzles above and below the glass surface to heat both surfaces of Low-E glass equally, tempering clear glass at a typical rate of 30 seconds per millimeter of thickness and most types of high-performance coated glass in less than 35 seconds per millimeter.

The Glasstech ERH2-C2 system’s nozzles are located above the glass line and deliver heat to the top coated surface of the glass, improving heating time for Low-E coated glass to 40-50 seconds per millimeter of thickness, compared to a standard radiant heating system’s 70 seconds per millimeter.

Both the ERH2-C2 and ERH2-C3 can be purchased as new systems or can be retrofitted to existing Glasstech ERH systems.

Other announcements made at the Glasstec exhibition were a larger model Cylindrical Radius Bender ideal for automotive asymmetrical sidelites, and the opening of an office in Shanghai to support sales in Asia and the Pacific Rim.