November 1, 1915^ 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



79 



THE WE8TINGH0USE AIR BRAKE MEETING. 



The annual meeting of stockholders of the Westinghouse 

 Air Brake Co. was held at VVilmerding. Pennsylvania, October 

 21. Condensed statements covering the fiscal year ending July 

 31, 1915, and a general report by the president, H. H. Westing- 

 house, were submitted. A dividend of $2.00 per share was de- 

 clared, payable October 30 to stockholders of record October 9. 



INSULATED WIRE SHIPPED DIRECT TO NORWAY. 



i:vidently some manufacturers of insulated wire have taken 

 the attitude that this product did not come under the inter- 

 pretation of the term "rubber manufacturers" as used in the 

 guarantee given by American rubber manufacturers to the British 

 Government, under which they agree not to ship rubber goods 

 to neutral countries except by way of London. A shipment of 

 7 cases and 18 bundles of insulated wire was made by a New 

 York shipping company on the "Bergensfjord," sailing October 

 16, direct to Norwegian ports. On October 23 the secretary of 

 the Rubber Club sent a circular letter to the insulated wire and 

 cable manufacturers of the country, calling their attention to 

 this shipment, of which he had been notified by the British con- 

 sul general of New York. The letter concludes with the follow- 

 ing paragraph : 



"Under the present conditions it is most necessary that 

 all manufacturers of rubber-covered wire goods inform their 

 customers regarding the terms of the British Rubber Guar- 

 antee relating to export shipments, and in order to protect 

 their own interests it would seem advisable to have a thor- 

 ough understanding with firms who have made such export 

 shipments in respect to any further purchases which they 

 may make. The British Government at present is exercising 

 special diligence regarding rubber-covered wire." 



A NEW DIRECTORY OF THE RUBBER TRADE. 



At the rate at which the rubber trade of the United States has 

 yrown during the last few years it is inevitable that any directory 

 purporting to give an accurate census of this industry should be 

 soon outgrown. That is what happened to the directory of the 

 rubber trade which was published by The India Rubber World 

 in 1906. Inside of five years it was quite inadequate properly to 

 represent the trade. According!}-, in 1912 this office published a 

 new directory, this time including not only the rubber trade of 

 the United States and Canada, but of the whole world. 



This, in turn, no longer adequately covers the rubber held of 

 today. Consequently we are engaged in the prepartion of a 

 new rubber trade directory which will appear some time in Janu- 

 ary next. As it is impossible under present conditions to get 

 any accurate idea of the rubber trade of Europe and as, neces- 

 sarily, the European situation after the war will differ materially 

 from conditions prior to the war, it was inevitable that Europe 

 should be omitted from this compilation. The new 1916 di- 

 rectory, therefore, will be confined to the rubber trade of the 

 United States and Canada. It will contain a list of the rubber 

 manufacturers of these two countries, arranged under three dif- 

 ferent classifications. The first arrangement will be alphabetical, 

 irrespective of location. In this list the officers of all the differ- 

 ent corporations mentioned will be given. The second arrange- 

 ment will be geographical, first under an alphabetical arrange- 

 ment of states and then of the towns in each state. The third 

 arrangement will be an alphabetical one, according to the type 

 of goods manufactured. 



In addition, there will be lists of crude rubber importers and 

 brokers, rubber reclaimers, rubber stores and supply men for the 

 rubber trade, including those who sell fabrics, compounding in- 

 iiredients and rubber machinery. 



The department devoted to trade marks and trade names, which 

 has been a valuable feature of the two former directories, will be 

 revised, enlarged and corrected to the present time, and will be 

 even more complete in this book than in either of its predecessors. 

 It will be the best directory of the trade yet published. 



THE MECHANICAL RUBBER GOODS DIVISION DINNER. 



The Mechanical Rubber Goods Division of The Rubber Club 

 of America, Inc., will have a dinner, November 3, at 6:30 p. m. 

 at the Union League Club, New York. 



THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK RUBBER TRADE 

 ASSOCIATION. 



The annual meeting of the Rubber Trade Association of New 

 N ork will be held in the Association's rooms at 82 Beaver street, 

 New York, November 4, at 3 p. m. 



WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC INCREASES WAGES. 



The Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., of East 

 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has granted its shop employees an 

 average 8-hour and 40-minute day instead of the average 9-hour 

 day, or a 52-hour week instead of a S4-hour week, and they 

 will have the same weekly wage for 52 hours now obtained 

 for 54 hours.^ A bonus of 6 per cent, on the earned wages 

 is also to be paid in progressive quarterly installments, which 

 will give the employees a yearly increase of about 10 per 

 cent, in wages. The new work hours and bonus payments 

 began October 1. 



A savings fund has been established to encourage thrift 

 among the employees, the company acting as trustee and 

 guaranteeing the deposits and 4K' per cent, interest. 



MR. ATLSWORTH THE INVENTOR OF CONDENSITE. 



To the Editor of The India Rubber World: 



In your issue of October 1, Dr. L. H. Baekeland is men- 

 tioned as the inventor of Condensite. This is an error. The in- 

 ventor is J. W. Aylsworth, who for more than a quarter of a 

 century has been closely associated with Thomas A. Edison, as 

 his chief consulting chemist. 



Condensite was developed in the course of a search for a 

 better material to be used in the manufacture of phonograph 

 records, and the Edison Diamond Disc record is the result. 

 Condensite is the only phenolic condensation product that has 

 ever been successfully used in the making of a record, which is 

 probably the most difficult plastic moulded article to manufac- 

 ture without imperfections. 



Condensite is unlike any other phenolic condensation product, 

 because of the unique method by which it is made, and which, 

 of course, is thoroughly described in the Aylswortli patents. 

 By this process the product, during the reaction between the 

 chemicals of which it is composed, is heated to such a degree 

 as to disassociate all the water, a process which if employed 

 in the manufacture of any of the forms of phenolic condensation 

 products described in the art prior to the Aylsworth patents, 

 would render them useless. 



This absence of water even in minute iiuantities, gives to the 

 linal product a capacity for taking extremely minute impres- 

 sions in moulding, as well as imparting to them unusual elec- 

 trical and other qualities of value. 



The next step in the manufacture of Condensite very much 

 resembles that of rubber manufacture. It is compounded with 

 a chemical that reacts upon it when heated, and hardens the 

 product, just as sulphur or other vulcanizing mediums harden 

 rubber when similarly treated, and the process of molding is 

 very much the same as in rubber manufacture. 



Your mention of Condensite also refers to it as a substitute 

 tor rubber. This is true only in a very small degree ; it has in 

 some instances been used in the place of rubber, but its develop- 

 ment, so far, has chiefly been in competition with other sub- 

 stances, and with re.spect to rubber, we should say that Con- 

 densite rather supplements than substitutes it. Each possesses 

 valuable properties not found in the other. 



Condensite Comi>.\nv of A.merica, 



October 21. 1915. Kirk Brown, President. 



