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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[July i, 19091 



The India-Rubber Trade in Great Britairu 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



T. GA&E'S 

 PATENTS. 



I REFERRED to this topic a short time ago, but a refer- 

 ence to a new patent connected with spreading, in the 

 May issue of The India Rubber World (page 292) sug- 

 gests that a more detailed reference to the interesting works 

 at Hazel Grove, near Stockport, may not be without interest. 

 With regard to the spreading patent of 

 Gare, and that for making sheet rub- 

 ber by a new process, I cannot say 

 anything from personal knowledge, but I have seen the first 

 patent for the remaking of solid cab tires, railway buffers, 

 etc., in operation and it is certainly very interesting and to 

 my knowledge novel. I understand that granting of the 

 patent, which is dated December, 1908, was much delayed 

 by opposition from a source of which I have no detailed 

 information. Since then another patent on somewhat similar 

 lines has been granted, though it was opposed by the Gare 

 interests. The process itself, to briefly summarize the patent, 

 consists in reducing the worn but not decayed rubber to 

 fine powder, this being effected on machines which have 

 been specially designed and patented. The rubber powder is 

 fed in at one end of a specially constructed die machine by a 

 hopper and after compression into a solid mass it appears again 

 as a new tire' at the other end. Except in the rate of production 

 the process much resembles that ordinarily seen at a rubber 

 works. In Gare's process, though the production of the tire is 

 continuous, it is at a much slower rate. The temperature the 

 rubber is subjected to is from 390° to 400° F., and it is carefully 

 regulated by a thermometer. The tire is rolled up on a drum as 

 it comes from the machine after passing over a bed of French 

 chalk. No other processes are necessary and the tires can be 

 put on the wheels they came from after a very short time. The 

 remade tires have given, I understand, every satisfaction, and 

 as they can be produced at a much less cost than new ones it 

 is evident that the manufacture of and sale of new tires is likely 

 to be adversely affected. The same remarks apply to remade 

 buffers, which appear to give very satisfactory results, both in 

 mechanical testing and in use. In remaking the buffers the 

 ground rubber is compressed in molds by hydraulic pressure 

 and then heated in the molds in a hot-air chamber up to about 

 400° F. Among other goods being made fre horseshoe pads 

 and rubber heels. As mentioned in my former notice, a com- 

 pany with a large capital has been formed to take over the Gare 

 patents, and this company has already issued licenses to three 

 or four British rubber manufacturing firms to use the tire 

 patent. Subsidiary companies are also in process of formation 

 to work the patents in the various colonies, though with regard 

 to these it would seem as if there was not much prospect of 

 large business in some of the cases. It may be mentioned that 

 a somewhat similar patent of O. C. Tunewich, of Finchley, Lon- 

 don, dated December 24, 1907, has reference to the manufacture 

 of vulcanite articles from powdered waste vulcanite, this being 

 . heated to about 400° F. in a mold. A variation of this process is 

 to use the waste vulcanite in the form of turnings or shavings, 

 a spring being provided to take up any excessive pressure de- 

 veloped during the compression at 400° F. 



The prospectus was issued on May 17 of the Rubber Tanned 

 Leather Co., Limited, with a capital of £250,000, of which 

 £150,000, mostly in shares, goes to the 

 promotion interests which comprise the 

 Rubber Tanning Syndicate, Limited, of 

 London, and the Rubberized Leather Co., Limited, of Melbourne, 

 Australia. The board, whose chairman is Lord Sufiield, is more 

 representative of rubber planting than of the leather trade. The 



RUBBER.TANNED 

 LEATHER. 



reports on the process mostly emanate from those who have tried 

 the new product made up into articles of commerce, though there 

 is a satisfactory report from one firm of tanners. There does not 

 appear to be any report from any scientific authorities on the 

 leather manufacture ; at least none such were sent out with the 

 prospectus. The title of the company is to some extent am- 

 biguous. It is not quite clear on the face of it whether the ruly- 

 ber does the tanning or whether the previously tanned leather 

 is treated with rubber in order to niake it more waterproof. 

 The main object of the ordinary tanning processes is, of course, 

 to render the gelatine of the soft and flabby hide insoluble b'' 

 conversion into tannate of gelatine. Other processes, such as 

 the chrome process, have the same result without the use of 

 tannic acid. I am not aware that the gelatine can be fixed 

 merely by treatment with rubber and imagine that some body 

 such as tannic acid or chrome is used in conjunction. This com- 

 pany is, of course, on a different footing to those which have had 

 for their object the substitution of leather by some other 

 product. Various leather substitutes have had a certain degree 

 of success in certain directions, but they have never really 

 threatened the old established leather interests. The new prod- 

 uct, however, will, I imagine, come into close conflict with the 

 latter if the claims as to its superiority for boots, driving belts- 

 etc., are generally substantiated. 



The Seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry 



was opened on May 27 by the Prince of Wales in the Albert 



CONGRESS OF Hall, London, and was attended by about 



APPLIED 3,000 representatives of 20 different 



CHEMISTRY. countries, as well as by a number of 



ladies. From the india-rubber point of view there is not a 



great deal of interest to record. Several papers, it is true, were 



put in the agenda, but in only one case did the author appear in 



person. This absence of authors, indeed, struck me as depriving 



the congress of an important element of interest. Herewith is 



a list of the papers on rubber announced in the daily journal 



of the congress to be read at stated times : 



1. Theorie und Praxis der Kautschukregeneration. By Paul Alexander. 



2. Die Nitorite der Kautschuk. By Paul Alexander. 



3. A Technical Process for Improvement of Low and Medium Grade 

 rubbers. By M. W. Wildermann. 



4. India-Rubber in North America. By Henry C. Pearson. 



5. Chemie des Kautschuk. By Richard Weil. 



6. Besprechung liber Kautschuk Analyse. By R. Weil and P. Tenunc. 



7. The Analysis of Manufacturedlndia-Rubber Goods. W. F. A. Exmen. 



Mr. Wildermann proposed to improve inferior rubbers by 

 treatment with alcohol and chloroform to remove resin and cer- 

 tain other constituents. The suggestion was adversely criticised 

 by Dr. H. P. Stevens and it is certainly not easy to imagine it 

 coming into regular application. But there is not space here for 

 further details regarding this or any of the other papers 

 mentioned. 



At the closing meeting of the congress the American ambas- 

 sador, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, read an invitation from the United 

 States government to hold the 1912 Congress in New York. 

 Professor W. Morley was elected honorary president and Dr. 

 W. H. Nichols president, in the places of Sir Henry Roscoe, 

 K. R. s., and Sir William Ramsay, K. c. b., f. r. s. 



Somewhat of a novelty in British newspapers is the pros- 

 pectus of a Canadian company — that of the Canadian Mineral' 

 Rubber Co., Limited. This is a 

 GILSONITE. development qf the American As- 



phaltum and Rubber Co.. working 

 gilsonitc and bituminous limestone mines, and its object 



