Usually, in glass production the glass is powdered before it is stapled to avoid scratches etc. In known powdering devices of the kind mentioned experience has shown that a lot of powder is scattered around instead on the product resulting not only in the soiling of the vicinity and thus leading to an increased risk of accidents as well as to high maintenance costs but also causes a comparatively high powder consumption. The reason this happens is that in known approaches the powder is not discharged in relation to the format but along the entire length of the application beam whose length must correspond to the maximum format width plus a possible side drift.
Attempts to counteract this effect have tried, for example, by inserting fill wedges into the storage space which partly close the discharge slot. These fill wedges, however, have to be inserted manually which is often omitted. Further, the storage space needs to be emptied which is also undesirable. Apart from that, the fill wedges ensure only a rough adjustment of the length of the discharge slot to the format width and a side drift cannot be taken into account at all.