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THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[December 1. 1913. 



The Rubber Trade in Great Britain. 



By Our Regular Correspondent. 



MOTOR TYRE NOTES. 



THE Clark Tyre Co., Ltd., has leased some large mills at 

 Crayford in Kent and expects to be turning out tires 

 before long. The patents deal with the method of build- 

 ing uj) the rubber and canvas of the pneumatic tire and are the 

 outcome of long experimenting by Mr. Clark in Australia, where 

 he has been for seven or eight years. The new company is 

 well backed, its capital, I tmderstand, being in the neighborhood 

 of £150,000. The contract for machinery has been placed with 

 Messrs. Kddon of Leyland. 



The Prowodnik motor tire, which is characterized by its 

 peculiar brownish color, appears to be very popular and to be 

 selling well against its rivals, despite the fact that the covers 

 cost about £2 more than those of well known makes longer 

 established. 



On October 16, Mr. George Sutton, manager of the W. T. 

 Henley's Telegraph Works Co., Ltd., showed a large party of 

 motorists and dealers over the new tire factory just opened at 

 the company's Gravesend branch. 



Judging by the demand in Paris for the Macintosh tire, this 

 make seems to have firmly established itself in France. 



I hear that the Stelastic tire is coming on well in public estima- 

 tion. It is owned by the limited company of this name which 

 was floated about a year ago. The steel in this tire is in the 

 form of springs embedded in the rubber, thus differing from 

 the Wood- Milne tire in which fine steel dust is mixed with the 

 rubber. The business done in motorcycle tires has largely in- 

 creased of late owing to the growing popularity of these ma- 

 chines. These tires are made in varying qualities, the wear 

 being generally in a direct ratio with the price. Prices at retail 

 vary from 14s. to 52s. each, the latter figure being that at which 

 the well-known Kempshall tire is sold. 



The Dook-Swain Tyre Co., of Manchester, is to be wound up 

 voluntarily, a resolution to that effect having been passed at 

 a meeting of the shareholders. Mr. Leo Swain, the prominent 

 tire and motor accessory agent of Manchester, severed his con- 

 nection with the company many years ago. 

 ASBESTOS. 



The lamentable railway disaster at Aisgill in September last 

 brought the matter of fireproof railway coaches under general 

 discussion. According to numerous press reports a prominent 

 railway official declared that asbestos was unsuitable for con- 

 structional work because it attacked nails, metal fittings, etc., 

 and there was also a doubt as to how long its fire-resisting 

 properties would last. Mr. J. A. Fisher, however, wrote to the 

 press pointing out that the statements in the papers were not 

 correct, as it was fireproofed wood and not asbestos that they 

 referred to. A good many people were naturally surprised when 

 they read of the supposed defects of asbestos and ^Ir. Fisher's 

 letter was decidedly appropriate, in the interests of an important 

 industry. 



Asbestos millboard is already largely used in the construction 

 of coaches on the underground electric railways in London, and 

 quite recently the Midland Railway has commenced experiment- 

 ing with fireproof coaches in which asbestos is used. Of course 

 there will be competition among the makers of asbestos goods 

 for the new demand which is foreshadowed, and it may be that 

 pure asbestos fibre will not hold the field. 



A substance called uralite is already being largely used for 

 fireproof buildings. This is understood to consist of asbestos 

 fibre cemented by a mineral glue consisting of gelatinous silica 



and a little chalk, the whole being consolidated under heat and 

 pressure. Asbestos slates are being increasingly used, a promi- 

 nent instance being at the new Partington steel works near Man- 

 chester. This industry I mentioned some months ago was being 

 taken up by Messrs. Turner Bros., Ltd., at their new works at 

 Trafiford Park, Manchester, and they have recently taken more 

 adjoining land with a view to future developments. A modern 

 use of asbestos is in connection with the acetylene gas industry. 

 In order to make a non-explosive transportable gas the Acetylene 

 Illuminating Co. uses light steel cylinders filled with baked 

 asbestos, the pores of which are charged with acetone. The 

 cylinders are then charged with acetylene under pressure, and on 

 opening the valve the gas is given off steadily. Such cylinders 

 are chiefly used for lighting motor vehicles. 



MILK PRODUCTS. 



The last few years have seen great strides in the industrial 

 applications of milk, apart from the development of the manufac- 

 ture of foodstuffs such as dried milk in South America. One 

 sometimes hears casein products referred to as rubber substitutes, 

 but, tho they may have entered in small quantity into certain 

 rubber mixings, I feel sure that the rubber planter has little to 

 fear in this direction. It is the camphor producer whose busi- 

 ness is threatened, as by far the greater amount of the commer- 

 cial articles made from casein enter into competition with those 

 made from celluloid, an important desideratum being their non- 

 inflammability. Up to quite recently only one of these casein 

 bodies has had any real commercial success. This is galalith, 

 made on the Continent of Europe ; but this has now found a 

 competitor in lyrolit, which is being manufactured at Stroud, in 

 England, and which is reported to be in demand in trade circles 

 where celluloid, xylonite, etc., have hitherto been used. It is also 

 said to be a good electrical insulating material and to be able to 

 replace vulcanite. Here, of course, it comes into competition 

 w-ith rubber. 



I think, however, that in the state of public feeling against the 

 dangers of celluloid, the non-inflammable milk products will find 

 their best markets in the case of goods for household and per- 

 sonal use. For instance, they have proved quite satisfactory for 

 buttons; and there has been quite an outcry lately about in- 

 flammable celluloid buttons. Lyrolit may possibly not have the 

 defects which have characterized its predecessors, prominent 

 among which are liability to absorb water and swell up, and the 

 fact that, unlike celluioid, thin films of the material cannot be 

 obtained. Galalith is manufactured in France by the Compagnie 

 Internationale de la Galalithe Hoff et Cie, at Levallois-Perret, 

 and in Germany by the well-known United Harburg- Vienna Co., 

 at Harburg. These milk products are of quite different con- 

 stitution to the other principal substitute for celluloid, viz., 

 bakelite, a condensation product of phenol and formaldehyde. 

 This body, which originated in America, is now being made in 

 Europe. 



THE LIVERPOOL F.\CTORIES. 



The Liverpool Electric Cable Co.. w'hich used to be located 

 in Vauxhall Road, next to the Liverpool Rubber Co., is now 

 established at Linacre Lane, Bootle, a suburb of Liverpool. This 

 company has no connection with the New Liverpool Rubber Co., 

 of 292 Vauxhall Road. This latter company, it will be remem- 

 bered, was so named when the concern formerly called the 

 Liverpool Rubber Co. was taken over, a few years ago, by Messrs. 

 C. Macintosh & Co., Ltd. The works manager is Mr. M. Davis. 

 Some little distance away, at Walton, the New Liverpool Co. 



