melt a portion of a glass preform 12 and a continuous glass fiber filament 13 is then drawn from the melt zone onto a rotatable take up reel 14 the filament 13 passes through a substantially planar rotating body of flowable material 16 which is formed by an applicator generally designated by the numeral 17 the applicator 17 is comprised of a rotatable conical member 18 having an apex 19 in juxtaposition to a planar plate 26 the flowable material 16 is fed into the volume bounded by the surface of the plate 26 and the rotatable conical member 18 through a conduit 27 the apex 19 projects slightly into but does not make contact with the end of the conduit 27 as can best be seen in the enlarged partial cross sectional view of fig1 the rotatable conical member 18 is rotated under the control of a variable speed motor 28 via a shaft 29 in operation the motor 28 is activated to rotate the conical member 18 as the flowable material 16 is introduced between the conical member and the plate 26 via the conduit 27 to fill the volume therebetween as the conical member 18 rotates the viscous force of the flowable.