The Perfect Machine

by Ronald Florence

  The most popular program on the air, from its beginnings in 1929, was the nightly Amos ‘n’ Andy, broadcast for fifteen minutes on NBC at 7:00 P.M., just after Lowell Thomas’s news broadcast. People were so eager not to miss a word of the stereotyped antics of the Kingfish, Brother Crawford, and Madam Queen that most tuned in early enough to hear Lowell Thomas and his news broadcast. It was said that the resonant tones of Thomas’s trademark sign-off, “So long until tomorrow,” and greeting, “Good evening, everybody” made his the most recognizable voice on the planet.

  Thomas had made his fame traipsing across the desert in pursuit of T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia. A decade and a half later, books, lecture tours, and publicized adventures in faraway places had made the young, handsome, mustachioed Thomas famous. Damon Runyon claimed that Lowell Thomas was successful because he gave the impression of saying, “Now here is the news with some human slants on it and you can interpret it to suit yourself.” The columnist Cy Caldwell offered a different explanation in a proposed epitaph:

  Here lies the bird

  Who was heard

  By millions of people—

  Who were waiting to hear

  “Amos ‘n’ Andy.”

  Whichever the reason, for many Americans in the midst of the depression, the news was what Lowell Thomas reported. The superlatives in the story—twenty tons of glass, poured to create the largest glass casting ever made, for the costliest scientific instrument ever designed, the biggest telescope in the world, an instrument that would see farther into the cosmos—were the sort of tale Thomas delighted in reporting. He was never averse to hyperbole, and a list of superlatives was just what he needed to make a story that some would find “ordinary” into the kind of news that people remembered. Thomas knew a depressed America craved good news. He recognized a story about America’s greatness in the NBC script.

  In his broadcast Thomas described the plans to cast the great mirror in the quiet upstate town of Corning, New York, then added a few superlatives of his own. This event, he reported, the creation of this mirror, this step forward for science and technology, was “the greatest item of interest to the civilized world in twenty-five years, not excluding the World War.”

  The next morning Leon Quigley, the telephone receptionists at the Glass Works, and the Western Union office in Corning couldn’t keep up with the requests for information about the project. News services, newspaper reporters, and radio broadcasters wanted tickets to view the casting. Amateur and professional filmmakers besieged Quigley with requests to document the pour. Scientists and industrialists, eager to be present, rang up their old friends from school or clubs to request tickets for themselves, families, and friends. When Corning’s own paper, the Evening Leader, asked if Corning residents would also be allowed to attend the great event, Amory Houghton yielded to the circus atmosphere and announced that Corning employees and their families would receive tickets and that the Glass Works would make provisions for public viewing.

  In Pasadena the Observatory Council tried to discourage the crowds that Corning seemed to be welcoming. Arthur Day, in Washington, was glad that Corning, his company, had finally gotten the attention of the press. Day even insisted on written confirmation from George Hale and Max Mason that they wanted only a few tickets for the great event.

  Until Thomas’s broadcast the preparations for the two-hundred-inch disk had gone on quietly. Even the success of the 120-inch mirror wasn’t announced to the press. The optics labs in Pasadena weren’t ready for the 120-inch mirror, so it had been crated in 8-x-8-inch timbers and left standing on its edge in a corner of Building 31 of the Corning Glass Works while efforts turned to the preparations for the two-hundred-inch mirror.

  The 120-inch mirror had come out so well that McCauley decided not to tempt the fates with changes. The only modification in the casting procedure for the two-hundred-inch disk would be the use of hollow mold cores, which would cool rapidly with the disk, to form the pockets and ribs in the back of the disk. It would mean no more of the spectacular light-and-shadow show they had seen with the 120-inch disk, but also the end of the bubbles that had formed around the cores.

  Building up the new hollow forms was laborious. Thirty-eight different forms were needed to create the complex geometry of ribs and pockets for the mirror supports. Altogether, 114 core forms had to be built up, out of 4,800 pieces of brick. McCauley derived formulas to calculate the cutting angles to build circular forms from pieces of rectangular brick. Draftsmen and engineers then worked out the exact dimensions of each piece for the mold makers, and the Corning masons, now practiced at the construction of these strange molds, cut the bricks on a modified table saw, finished them with a lathe, used a portable grinder to fair the edges of the assembled molds, and painted the inside with silica-flour coating. The task was complicated by the ultimate shape of the disk. Although it would be molded with a flat surface, the face of the mirror would ultimately be ground to a radius of curvature of 111 feet, which meant that the surface would be dished approximately 4 inches from edge to center. To maintain the proper thickness of glass over the forms, the cores had to decrease in height from 20 inches at the rim to 16 inches near the center.

  To make sure there were no repeats of the floating core disasters with the 60-inch disk, McCauley increased the size of the steel rods that held the cores down. There had been only mild oxidation of the heads of the steel rods that held the cores for the 120-inch disk, so the larger rods, which would be cooled with forced air inside the hollow cores, seemed more than adequate for the job. Water cooling was rejected because a tiny leak in the mold would have produced a spectacular explosion of steam. Air cooling also permitted the use of electric thermocouples to monitor the temperature inside the cores. A full 9 inches of solid refractory brick on the top of the molds protected the ends of the anchor rods from the heat of the molten glass. The masons didn’t construct a second set of mold cores this time; it was hard to justify the cost after the extras for the 120-inch mirror had been consigned to the brick wasteyard.

  The 3A melting tank in A Factory had to be rebuilt for the larger pour. McCauley’s calculations showed that the level in the tank would drop approximately 15 inches as the glass was removed, which would make it difficult for the ladlers to dip down to the surface of the glass late in the process. Adding new glass during the pour was not a solution; the glass was being used much faster than normal production glass, and the special 715-CF batch was slow to melt and fine. McCauley had the production department rebuild the top 12 inches of tank wall under the ladling doors out of removable refractory bricks, fastened to the tank with a steel strap. As the level of glass dropped, a workman with a torch could cut away the steel strap and knock out the row of refractory bricks (which had been beveled to be easily removable), letting the ladlers reach deeper into the tank.

  These preparations, and the sudden attention of the press and public, came just when orders for Pyrex ware and other Corning production-line products had picked up from their depression lows. While Quigley juggled the requests for tickets, McCauley had to negotiate with the production department for space for the telescope mirror project. Pours had to be scheduled when the casting would least disrupt the regular production of blown glassware, Corning’s bread and butter. Having reporters and guests present, and Amory Houghton’s decision to admit the public, complicated the logistics. Carpenters were put to work prefabricating an elevated walkway for the south wall of the A Factory blowing room, with doors arranged so a steady procession of employees and townspeople could see a portion of the operation. A platform with corral rails was erected on the floor of the blowing room, where the press, industry and science bigwigs, and invited guests could stand close enough to hear the roar of the furnaces and to see the glow of molten glass during the pour.

  The fires for the tank were started in early February, and two tentative dates were blocked out, February 18 and 25. When McCauley discovered iron contamination in the melting tank from
a ladling door frame, the tentative dates were canceled, and March 25, a Sunday, was set as the new date. Formal invitations and tickets went out, printed on colored paper to indicate the seating and standing assignments for the anticipated crowds. Principals like Francis Pease and Walter Adams were coming from California to see the pour as representatives of the Observatory Council. Corning officials who had previously worked hard to keep the project quiet invited friends to the great day. McCauley invited his former professors at the University of Wisconsin and friends from Cleveland to come with their families. The whole world was coming to Corning.

  The Baron Steuben Hotel quickly filled as the newspaper and magazine reporters, photographers, and filmmakers crowded into Corning. Quigley had the assignment of finding rooms for the press and invited guests, arranging entertainment for the bigwigs, answering questions for the reporters, and providing what were not yet called “photo opportunities” for the wire service and newspaper photographers. He lined up Corning executives for interviews with the magazines and newspapers that wanted more than the press releases. Film crews, discovering that there wasn’t enough light or room in the area around the casting ovens, came up with alternate topics. One crew did an entire talkie segment on how the 120-inch disk would be used to test the bigger mirror while it was ground and polished. Footage of the mirror, which had been brought out for public viewing, was supplemented by a talking-head blackboard session with Dr. Gage of the Optical Glass Division.

  One reporter from a Buffalo newspaper arrived in Corning on Saturday, only to be told by the other reporters that the “pouring” had already begun. Convinced that he had missed the big event he was there to cover, the reporter labored to concoct an alibi, until he realized that he was the butt of a joke: The “pouring” that had begun was of a different sort. Another segment of the glass industry, bottle makers like Libby-Owens-Ford and Owens Illinois, were enjoying a sudden business revival since the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933. There was a good deal of “pouring” that night in Corning, as Glass Works managers were recruited to entertain the distinguished visitors in hotels, restaurants, and private homes.

  All day Saturday the carpenters worked to assemble the platforms and walkways around the molding area, while photographers and artists took photos and made sketches of the tank, ladles, mold, kiln, controls, and the locomotive hoist that would move the disk from the casting igloo to the annealing oven. Color-coded arrow signs were put up to direct visitors with different-colored tickets. In the evening the casting-oven burners were lit to preheat the igloo to working temperature.

  McCauley came in for a last check. The 3A tank was brimming with fined 715-CF batch; the equipment had been checked, tested, and rechecked. He had asked the two ladlers who had done the 120-inch disk if they wanted assistance, since this disk would be so much larger. They said they preferred going it alone. McCauley concluded that their pride was important and said they could pour the whole disk.

  The Sunday date for the pour had been chosen to minimize the disruption to the production lines in A Factory. The day dawned bright and crisp, a good omen. But no omens were enough to deter the fundamentalist ministers, who read between the lines of the press releases and concluded that the choice of the Sabbath for the pour had an obvious, sinister meaning. A telescope built on the Sabbath, they preached, was clearly the work of the devil; those who would build it were Satan’s agents. In pulpits where the usual targets of Communism, fornication, racial mixing, or the New Deal had begun to seem weary, satanic technology drew believers eager to prove that fundamentalism hadn’t died with the Scopes trial.

  But the fundamentalists, for all their clamor, were a minority. For most of the country, and especially Corning, New York, Sunday, March 25, 1934, was a long anticipated celebration of science, progress, and the Corning Glass Works. Father Kincaid, the rector of the Episcopal Church where McCauley served as a warden, agreed to hold a special early-morning service on Sunday for McCauley, his family, and others who wanted to pray for the success of the effort. The reporter from Time magazine, hearing about the service, christened the scientist in charge of the project “Pious McCauley.” McCauley got a chuckle out of that: Unknown to the reporter McCauley’s father and grandfather were both named Pius.

  The crew assembled at 7:00 A.M. for a final hour of rehearsal with the ladles and other equipment. The procedures were all familiar, but the visitors’ galleries on the floor and overhead added a new element, and McCauley was eager to have no surprises. It was 8:00 A.M. when Charles Wilson, the chief ladler, signaled McCauley that they were ready.

  The visitors’ platform and gallery were already full. In the front row of the VIP platform, the orchestra section for the performance, Mrs. McCauley and their two sons, James and George Jr., shared the railing with Walter Adams; Francis Pease; Sir William Bragg, an exchange professor at Corning from England; Lyman Briggs of the Bureau of Standards; Max Mason; G. M. Chant, of the Dominion Observatory in Canada; Arthur L. Day; and A. E. Marshall, president of the Society of Chemical Engineers. Reporters and out-of-town guests with blue or red tickets shared a balcony that overhung the operation. The first of the thousands of general public who were admitted in fifteen-minute shifts stood on the gallery along the south wall; a serpentine line outside, growing longer by the minute, was routed past the building where the 120-inch disk was on display—a divertissement to keep the public entertained while they awaited their brief period inside the factory. Officers of the Corning Glass Works, including Vice President Hanford Curtiss, mingled among the guests.

  The reporters saw McCauley nod. The center door on the melting tank opened, and the audience got their first glimpse of the dazzling bluish white mass of molten glass at 1525°C. Wilson, at the head of the center ladle, wore an asbestos apron and held a protective shield in place over his face by a mouthpiece clenched in his teeth. The men behind him wore goggles and gloves. There were no OSHA regulations: All the workers wore ordinary street shoes.

  Wilson guided the huge ladle into the tank, signaling the men behind him to pivot and dip the long handle, which was suspended by a fulcrum from the overhead track, then to swing it up and back with its load of 750 pounds of white-hot, glowing molten glass. As the cup of the ladle emerged, the ladle cooler—wearing a jacket and tie and a tweed cap along with his protective gloves—placed the ring of his cooler around the lip and opened a valve to spray a ring of water on the lip of the red-hot ladle. The water sizzled off the hot rim, spraying front-row visitors as the ladle swung around the track toward the waiting mold. The two switchers made sure that each ladle went to the correct opening on the igloo, and a gateman stood ready to swing the gate of the igloo open.

  At the mold Wilson, holding the ladle at the fulcrum point, directed it into the igloo and signaled the men behind him to turn the long handle by the crosspiece at the end, pouring the molten glass into the heated mold. As the ladle came out, a cheer went up from the crowd. Someone in the gallery started singing, “I’m looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.” Successive groups in the gallery picked up the melody until it became the theme song of the day.

  About a third of the glass in the ladle ended up in the mold. The rest, which cooled into a heel in the ladle on the trip from tank to mold, was broken into a waiting two-wheeled wheelbarrow. The ladle went to a cooling water bath next to the tank, while the wheelbarrow carried the cullet to the rear of the melting tank, where it was dumped into a box on a crane that returned the material to the tank. The wheelbarrow was then cooled in a water bath.

  As soon as one ladle had left the tank, another started, filling at a different door of the three. Only eleven men made up the actual ladling crew, as the two experienced ladlers alternated among the three ladles and the three filling ports on the mold, filling and pouring, clearing and cooling the ladle, hour after hour, ladle after ladle. They would pour one hundred ladles of glass before they were finished. Two dozen other men worked behind the scene, tending the furnace fires, m
oving wheelbarrows, switching tracks.

  McCauley walked around the platform, watching, taking an occasional sample of glass for testing. Spectators who recognized him extended a hand. Some applauded. He answered with a nod. Like most of the guests, he wore his fedora all day.

  The procedure fell into a rhythm. Visitors who had watched a ladle poured moved on, letting others up to the front row. The public on the high gallery moved by, letting the next group in for a viewing. Copies of the Evening Leader were passed around by both the public and the reporters. The stories fed the crowd the superlatives that Lowell Thomas had promised: the biggest piece of glass in the world was being poured, the biggest scientists in the world were there, part of the biggest crowd ever to assemble at the Corning Glass Works, the biggest collection of newspaper-and cameramen ever assembled in that part of the world, the biggest “soup” spoons ever built were being used for the process, and a big time was being had by all. By late morning the man taking count of yellow gallery tickets had reached three thousand. The line snaked all the way around the huge factory building.

  During the morning George Maltby, Hostetter’s assistant, heard one of the Corning engineers say to McCauley that it wouldn’t work, that the thermal calculations were all wrong. McCauley shook it off. The pour was going perfectly. The samples of glass he had tested showed no contamination. The only mishap was that Corning Vice President Curtiss, who had tried to scale one of the plank fences that had been erected as safety barriers, had fallen and broken a rib. The pouring went on without interruption until noon, when McCauley called for a lunch break. After the workers had at their lunch pails, the operation resumed. The ladling seemed so routine that some visitors who had fought hard for tickets and then for positions close to the front of the platform chose not to return from lunch at the Baron Steuben Hotel or local restaurants.

  Dr. Littleton, who was doing the lab tests of the glass samples for McCauley, told him in the middle of the afternoon that there was a phone call. McCauley ducked into an office. It turned out to be a reporter from a London paper. “When did ladling begin?” the reporter asked.