The SECRET Behind How Glass Coca Cola Bottles Are Made: Automated Glass Bottle Manufacturing Factory 

Yeah it’s old tech but it’s so well engineered that nothing really needs to change

Thank You Mike Owens

Thanks for your feedback. Like a lot of automated processes, there are definitely still humans involved to keep it working smoothly and adjusting it. The automated aspects are the parts humans aren’t directly involved in, like moulding the glass by hand or moving the products down conveyers etc. We will try to be more clear about this in the future. Thanks again for watching and commenting.

It is a good video, only wanted to point out how much there is to due in the human aspect as well! @@HowItsManufactured

A lot depends on your plant and your management. The company I worked for took more than one marginal glass plant and turned it into a money maker. I felt privileged to work with the people there. They were some of the sharpest people I ever met.

Big facts 🩷🩷🩷

Different glass plants would have different ways of manufacturing glass for windows, tables, bottles, drinkware etc. This particular video only showed the automation part of it. I’m sure there are people at the ends of the line filling and receiving.

That’s really fascinating insights. 60 years is an incredible time, well done. I bet you have so some amazing stories over that time. Thanks for comment and thanks for watching.

Bubble gum was 1/2 a cent each and I used to pick these bottles up from the side of the road as I walked to the store about 2 miles from my house. I usually made enough money for a paper bag filled with candy. I remember young adults would just toss them out of their cars knowing the kids in the neighborhood would have extra money by picking them up. A crude recycling process but it seemed to work.

@@randygreen007 Where im from there was a discount system instead of straight up payment, so you were incentivized to bring your bottles with you and keep them clean and undamaged for a discount. i think it was 20%

It truly is. Very hot also :) Thanks for watching

Yeah it’s a very hard job. Thanks for watching

Totally is! Thanks for watching

That's great to hear. What did you like about the job?

You worked with bears??

5:15 *No, it’s a way to prevent lawsuits when people are injured by exploding bottles.*

Yeah it really is. Thanks for watching

It really is! Thanks for watching commenting.

Thank you for the support.

That’s great to hear. Thanks for watching and commenting

You're welcome!

Thanks for watching!

Yeah it really is

Great suggestion. Thanks for watching

That’s great to hear. Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the feedback. We will try to have more illustrations etc in the future.

Once the molten glass is cut into gobs by the shears, as shown, they pass thru the distributor to each section of the machine. Incidentally, the machine is called an Individual Section Machine or simply, IS machine. This particular machine is an 8 section, double gob machine, meaning that there are eight identical sections, each section producing two bottles at once. The gobs enter the back side of the machine, which is called the Blank side. The gobs enter the blanks and are upside down at that point. In the blanks, the gobs are partially formed - i.e the neck and thread are completely formed, and the rest of the bottle is semi-formed. At this point, it is called a Parison - the glass is cooled down enough to retain it's shape. When the Parison is formed, the blanks open up (everything is in two halves), and the semi-formed bottles then swing over to the front side of the machine on the invert arm. Now they are right side up, and they are presented to the molds which close on them. The invert arm releases them into the molds and flips back to start the process over again on the blank side. In the meantime, on the front or mold side, a blow head comes down on to the semi-formed bottles and blows them out into their final shape. Then, the blanks open and the take-out arms grab the completed bottles and take them out of the molds, as another set of newly-formed blanks come in behind them. Notice that the take-out arms suspends them briefly before setting them down in front of the push out jaws - this allows them to cool a bit. Then the push out jaws push them out on to the conveyor belt and they head into the annealing ovens or Lehrs. Now here is where it gets to be fun: every 10 minutes or so, depended on whether it is Summer or Winter, the blanks have to be swabbed (coated) with thick, high sulfur oil - called blank dope. This is necessary to keep everything running smoothly. This is done by the operator by hand while the machine is running. The operator must swab the both blanks in the brief time that they are open during transfer and before they close again to receive new gobs. He also has to swab the bottom plates of the molds, again while the machine is running. Timing is everything! Every 10 minutes or the machine will start to jam. In the Summer, the temperature in the front of the machine can be approx. 180 degrees. An operator wears long underwear under his work clothes to protect him from the heat and thick cotton gloves. It is not uncommon to lose 5-8 lbs weight during a shift. Glass machine operators have to watch their electrolyte balance! I hope this gives you better explanation as to what is going on.

That’s great to hear.

Oh that's really interesting, what sort of heat levels was it getting up to when you worked there? Do you get to take a lot of breaks to deal with the heat and noise? Thanks again for watching and commenting, we really appreciate it.

This was in 1980. It was like a hot summer day every day. I did work on the hot end one day where the glass is formed and the heat there was real bad and the noise was real bad. It was located in south east Wisconsin and we made beer bottles for Miller in Milwaukee. I did not like that job at all. @@HowItsManufactured

@@HowItsManufactured At our plant where I work temperature infront of the IS-machine will reach about 60 °C during summer. And while that surely is uncomfortable, the real pain is the radiation heat coming from the freshly shaped bottles. Depending on bottle size it can make working right on the machine an almost impossible task.

@@Bigcubefan That sounds rough. Do you have protective clothing that makes it more bearable, or do you have to just deal with it?

@@HowItsManufactured I mean, we wear thicker coats over our T-shirts, gloves and we have access to special gauntlets that protect the forearm additionally. Apart from that, deal with it. :D

Move over on that bench, pal.

Yup I’m in tooo😂😂😂😂🙏🙏🪬🪬🇬🇧🇬🇧

Yeah its the best!

Yeah they are great for recycling. Far, far better than plastic

Yes indeed

@@HowItsManufactured Yes indeed I have stopped and thought about how glass bottles are made

Wow 18 years is a good stint there! Thanks for watching and commenting

They still are made of glass in some countries/regions. But plastic sadly does dominate most of the world for Coca Cola these days

Hey when did you work at Jeannette glass? I worked there in mid 60ies. I worked in the factory then shipping.

@@cooldog60 yes. I worked for frankie laich, I ran 42 doubled headder

Wow that’s a long time ago! This technology has been around quite a while :). Thanks for commenting and watching

Oh wow you used to work on these machines. How long ago were you doing that?

@@HowItsManufactured I was a Mechanic in Ergonmeccanica from Savona (North Italy) ther's a district of glass producers and we use to repair and reshape the Emhart Glass machinery of various client. I did there the last 10 years of my job before retirement and I can tell that there is no work dirty and hard as this one, it's impossible to stand heat and fatigue for long time, but incoming money are slightly more than others blue collars work!

​.. Bottero?

@@jebbamin4109 No, Ergonmeccanica work with Blucher and Emhart...Bottero isn't very popular among us!

Sorry we didn’t explain it better. The first part of the moulding process forms the bottom of the bottle, it’s then moved to the next mould that makes the shape. It’s in this shaping mound that air is introduced to blow the bottle into its shape.

@@HowItsManufacturedHow do the bottle manufacturers add the colored Coca Cola lettering?

Thank you for sharing the story about your Uncle. I’m sure he was a great man!

The shaping happened in moulds, not visible to cameras. You see the moulds openings d closing, but sadly we can’t capture the actual moulding process.

The best right?

@@HowItsManufactured Best drink of world.

@@HowItsManufactured Best drink of world.

@@NDREW2024yeah by far

Genius engineers :)

Michael J. Owens invented the automatic glass blowing machine over 100 years ago.

Thanks for sharing your personal experience. I had wondered about employee turnover as it seems quite a tough job.

By the time you get to the forming department, your making pretty good money!

Love it!

With the mold

Do you get imported coke like from Mexico in glass bottles still? The coke made with sugar instead of corn syrup?

I was speaking of supermarkets. No one wants to carry 8 or 10 2-liter bottles in glass. Glass can be impractical, as the bottling companies have to pay more to ship them.

@@HowItsManufactured I don't drink soda. The only bottled thing I drink, in 2-liter bottles, is seltzer. And, no, bottling them in glass would be very impractical.

Yeah it really does.

This factory does a mixture of different brands and their various shapes. The process is the same it’s just that the mould is different when making the distinctive Coca Cola bottle.

Thanks for the feedback. Thanks for watching