How to Automate Sand-to-Glass Production With Hoppers

Building the Hopper Chain

To turn this mod into a hands-free glass factory, place a chest or hopper above your blast furnace feeding into the top input slot. This supplies a continuous stream of sand. Place a second hopper underneath the blast furnace, or beside the output slot, to pull finished glass out and deposit it into a chest. Finally, place a hopper feeding into the bottom fuel slot so fuel is replenished automatically.

Fuel and Throughput Considerations

Because the blast furnace smelts sand faster than a regular furnace, your fuel consumption per glass produced stays the same but your output rate roughly doubles. Keep a large stock of coal or charcoal in the fuel chest so the furnace never stalls. If you are running multiple blast furnaces in parallel, split your sand supply with a hopper line or a minecart system.

Scaling Up

For very large builds, chain several blast furnaces side by side, each with its own input and output hoppers, all feeding into a shared collection chest. This lets you convert an entire double chest of sand into glass in a fraction of the time a furnace array would take. Check periodically that no furnace has run out of fuel, since a stalled furnace will back up the entire hopper line behind it.