Paul Wissmach Glass Company, Inc.

The Paul Wissmach Glass Company, Inc. is making glass since 1904, in Paden City, West Virginia, USA. We constantly introduce new colors and types of glass to meet the demands of today’s glass artists and designers. Making glass is a hot business, both literally and figuratively. The factory has 14 brick furnaces that use natural gas to heat the limestone, soda ash and sand to 2,200°F (1,200°C). Different mixtures of ingredients create the distinct Wissmach colors. After heating, workers scoop the molten glass from the furnace and wheel it over to the glass press where a roller presses it into one of the 18 patterns that the company produces. The glass then travels down a 125 foot conveyor through a temperature controlled kiln called a lehr. The purpose of the lehr is to anneal the glass, or slowly and evenly cool it, to give the glass its durability and to prevent shattering or heat related breaking. At the end of the conveyor, workers carefully remove the cooled sheet of glass and cut it to the appropriate size.