Patent ID: 8640502

Claim:
A method of processing a glass optical fiber drawn from an optical fiber preform when drawing an optical fiber while fusing by heating and pulling by a pulling mechanism one end of the optical fiber preform, the method comprising: introducing the glass optical fiber that has passed the pulling mechanism to a shredding unit with an introducing unit that includes: a movable unit including a notch configured to fit with a capstan roller included in the pulling mechanism, a sliding mechanism that attaches the movable unit slidably with respect to a main body of the introducing unit, and a restoring mechanism configured to restore the movable unit to an initial position when the movable unit has slid; shredding the glass optical fiber introduced by the introducing unit into glass optical-fiber pieces with the shredding unit; suctioning the shredded glass optical-fiber pieces and carrying the glass optical-fiber pieces in a carrier pipe; and collecting the carried glass optical-fiber pieces.