Architectural glass percent of the world's flat glass is produced by the float glass process invented in the 1950s by Sir Alastair Pilkington of Pilkington Glass, in which molten glass is poured onto one end of a molten tin bath. The glass floats on the tin, and levels out as it spreads along the bath, giving a smooth face to both sides. The glass cools and slowly solidifies as it travels over the molten tin and leaves the tin bath in a continuous ribbon. The glass is then annealed by cooling in an oven called a lehr. The finished product has near-perfect
Glass casting the solid glass object. This very immediate and dynamic method was pioneered and perfected in the 1980s by the Swedish artist Bertil Vallien. Kiln casting involves the preparation of a mould which is often made of a mixture of plaster and refractory materials such as silica. A model can be made from any solid material, such as wax, wood, or metal, and after taking a cast of the model (a process called investment) the model is removed from the mould. One method of forming a mould is by the "Cire perdue" or "lost wax" method. Using this method, a model