Method and apparatus for producing glass balls

摘要

A method for producing glass balls, wherein a glass flow is fed between two rollers which are driven synchronously but counter-rotatingly in a flow direction, from a feed tank containing a mass of molten glass. The rollers have hemispherical depressions distributed over the circumference and form spherical beads on a thin glass strip successively in the region of an imaginary contact tangent. A thickness of the glass strip is fixed by the spacing between the rollers externally of the depressions in the region of the contact tangent. Crude balls are separated from the glass strip by a separating device, once the glass strip, containing the spherical beads, is cooled. The crude balls are subjected to a cold surface finishing treatment.