286 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



January 1, 1921 



The Rubber Trade in Great Britian 



IJy Our Regular Correspondent 



THE COAL STRIKE duiy Came to an end without, except in a few 

 cases, having caused any serious dislocation in the rubber 

 industry. Trade, especially in the prooling department and 

 in the making-up of garmei;ts, is quiet, almost to stagnation, and 

 a good deal of short time is being worked. 



Ne.\t to shilling a pound rubber, a prominent topic of con- 

 versation is the tightness of money. Leading firms with regular 

 weekly pay days are now asking for a month's grace, and all 

 around one hears of the difficulty of collecting accounts; a state 

 of affairs which is accentuated by the chariness of the banks in 

 granting loans. Naturally, the names of various firms get hawked 

 about as likely to find themselves in trouble, and altogether the 

 Christmas outlook is not particularly cheerful. The scarcity of 

 money is attributed by many to the excess profits tax, but prob- 

 ably there are many other factors of equal, if not more im- 

 portance. 



Cessation of buying on the part of the public has proved a 

 serious setback to trade, and now that in certain branches of 

 trade, such as clothes and boot.s, prices have come tumbling 

 down owing to forced realization, there is a tendency to wait 

 until everything else comes down. It is a subject of comment, 

 that while some noted tire firms advertised a cut in price to 

 follow the fall in rubber, others have made no reduction. An- 

 other item which has caused comment is that masticated hard 

 Para rubber is quoted at 6.?. 6d. per pound, which is 2s. more 

 than four years ago. 



From what I hear, the November motor show in London has 

 not been a success financially, from the exhibitor's point of view, 

 as sales were few and far between; indeed, some of the exhibitors' 

 staffs were sent home before the end of the show. General tight- 

 ness of money is the explanation of the slump in buying, and 

 doubtless this is correct. 



THE PEACHEY VULCANIZATION PROCESS 



The statutory meeting of the Peachey Process Co., Limited, 

 was held in London on October 25. The chairman. Sir John 

 Hewett, K.C.S.L, presided. From statements made by A. Her- 

 ring-Shaw, one of the directors, it appears that the experimental 

 laboratory is being established in London, and not in Manchester, 

 as was originally proposed. Mr. Peachey has given up his post 

 of lecturer at the Manchester Municipal College of Technology, 

 and will take charge of the London laboratory. It does not appear 

 to be the purpose of the company to manufacture any articles 

 for sale, but merely to demonstrate the manufacture of various 

 articles on a working scale, and to issue licenses to manufacturers. 

 As no patents had yet been granted in foreign countries, nothing 

 could be said at the moment regarding foreign rights. 



Last March Mr. Peachey was to have read a paper descriptive 

 of his process at the Manchester section of the Society of Chem- 

 ical Industry, but for obvious reasons found himself unable to 

 do so. The paper was, however, given at the meeting of 

 November 5, with the name of A. Skipsey added as joint author. 

 Naturally, in the interval, the subject matter has lost a good deal 

 of its novelty as far as readers of the rubber technical press are 

 concerned, though the large attendance at the meeting showed 

 that those outside the fold were anxious to get some first-hand 

 information. Under the circumstances it does not seem necessary 

 to quote the paper at any length, the opinions of the author 

 elicited in the discussion being probably of greater interest. 



H. L. Terry said that a piece of cut sheet ' rubber in his 

 possession had been cured by the process six months ago, and 

 showed no signs of deterioration. So far, he knew of no rapid 

 test to replace the tedious aging test of time, though he was 

 hopeful that something useful would result from the attention 

 being paid to the matter by the Rubber Section of the .^nlcri^•aIl 



Chemical Society. As caustic alkali removed nothing but a little 

 free sulphur, it was evident that reclaimers must look upon this 

 cold cured rubber as similar to the ordinary hot sulphur cured 

 rubber, and not as similar to the ordinary cold cured rubber in 

 which the ready removal of the chlorine by alkalies left a prac- 

 tically soluble rubber. 



A question was put by F. J. S. Gray, of the St. Helens Cable 

 & Rubber Co., as to how the process was to be applied to solid 

 tires and solid goods in general, the reply being that solid goods 

 would be built up of vulcanized sheets, although in somewhat 

 heavily compounded rubbers there was a very good penetration 

 of the gases. As regarded solid tires, referred to also by other 

 speakers, he might say that they would probably be the last rubber 

 goods to tackle. It was too much, he said, to expect of a new 

 process that it should be able to supplant older processes in every 

 direction. The speaker, who said that he had tried the process 

 and had found that sulphuric acid was produced, was informed 

 by Mr. Peachey that he had evidently not carried out the process 

 properly. There should always be an excess of hydrogen 

 sulphide, and this would prevent oxidation of the sulphur dioxide. 



Asked as to the effect of the free sulphur, which was a normal 

 constituent of golden sulphide of antimony and ultramarine, Mr. 

 Peachey said that free sulphur was undesirable, and bodies con- 

 taining it would not be used in his manufactures. There was 

 always a little free sulphur produced, but, by careful working, 

 the amount could be kept very low. The sulphur which caused 

 the rapid cure in the cold was in the atomic form and no doubt 

 any free sulphur would be in the molecular condition. The 

 question as to what was the effect of the water produced in the 

 gaseous reaction was answered to the effect that the amount was 

 very small and that it dissipated as a mist without condensing 

 to water. 



Among the exhibits on the table were samples of reformed 

 leather for shoe soles, upholstery, etc., and floor coverings made 

 of wood, meal, cork, etc., vulcanized with rubber as a binding, ot 

 a binding agent. A complete galosh made by the process was 

 also shown. The vulcanized rubber and leather dust soles had 

 been shown in practice to have two and a half times the wearing 

 power of new leather, this being probably due to the greater 

 resiliency. 



SHALE NAPHTHA 



In the October issue of The India Rubber World appeared an 

 interesting editorial entitled "Solvent Naphtha from Oil Shale." 

 It is interesting to hear the claims of .Xmerican oil shale urged, 

 and on grounds of ascertained cost, which may, of course, prove 

 in practice to be exceeded. It is noteworthy that, although shale 

 spirit has been used in Scotland for thirty or forty years, it is 

 only to a limited extent. In England its use has generally been 

 at times when the ordinary solvent was difficult to obtain. This 

 is as regards proofing works. For one or two purposes in the 

 mechanical branch, where balata is used, it has been preferred 

 to solvent naphtha. In shale products sulphur is always the 

 bugbear, and in the old days if one were anywhere near a Scotch 

 proofing works, the smell of shale naphtha could always be 

 detected if it wore being used. Of late years, however, a great 

 improvement lias been made in the quality of shale naphtha, not 

 only as regards smell, but also in freedom from high boiling 

 constituents. A year or two ago the writer had the opportunity 

 of inspecting the works of the Pumphcrston Oil Co., Midlothian, 

 and, on inquiring about shale naphtha, he was told that there was 

 not much for sale, as it was going for motor spirit. Of course, 

 if the large and progressive rubber companies of .America do 

 take to distilling oil shale, as the editorial suggests, they will be 



