science · 11 October 1938 · 86 years ago
In 1938, R. Games Slayter (died 15 Oct 1964) and John H. Thomas patent glass wool and the machinery to make it. Games Slayter, the driving force behind Owens Corning technology and innovation, sought to make a finer glass fiber material. In 1932, Dale Kleist, a young researcher under Jack Thomas (Slayter's research assistant), working on an unrelated experiment accidentally caused a jet of compressed air to strike a stream of molten glass, resulting in fine glass fibers. By Fall 1932, Kleist refined the process by using steam, to make glass fiber material thin enough for commercial fiber glass insulation. From March 1933, Games Slayter directed Jack Thomas in experiments using glass wool, instead of natural or other synthetic fibers, on textile machinery.
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