February 1, 1915] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



291 



Stevens and J. Jordan. The declared object is to carry on the 

 business of manufacturers of and dealers in rubber tires and 

 metal rims for vehicle wheels and rubber goods of all kinds. 

 The works of the Sirdar Rubber Co., Limited, situated at 

 Bradford-on-Avon, were put up for auction sale by tender as a 

 going concern in December. The company, which had gained 

 considerable success with its Sirdar motor tire, had been for 

 some tinn- in the hands of a liquidator. 



Till: RUBBER HEEL TKADE. 



Attention was drawn to the prevailing depression in this branch 

 by the sale by auction of the effects of the Lancashire Rubber 

 Works, Limited, of Manchester, on December 23. The factory, 

 with unexpired lease, was first offered as a going concern, but 

 as no bid was forthcoming the plant and stock were sold piece- 

 meal, with the exception of the heavy machinery, which was 

 stated to be the property of Messrs. Hampson Brothers, the 

 rubber engineers. For some time the close competition among 

 heel manufacturers has been a source of concern to individual 

 firms and the practical closing of the Continental trade by the 

 war has been a serious matter. Belgium, Austria and Italy have 

 been good customers for cheap heels, and also Germany to some 

 extent. There has been practically no import of these goods 

 from the Continent, and manufacturers have not had much in 

 the way of increased home markets to make up for the loss of 

 foreign business. At the same time some firms announce satis- 

 factory business in home circles, so it is not all gloom. What 

 foreign competition there is comes from America, in the form 

 of a heel described by business competitors as being of a good 

 medium quality. 



ELASTIC THREAD. 

 As so large a part of the English production of this article 

 is usually sent to Germany, France and Scandinavia, it is not 

 surprising that this department of the rubber trade has been 

 severely hit by the war, though considerable compensation has 

 come in the increased demand for surgical equipment, into some 

 of which it enters. Since the introduction of the rubber-cored 

 golf ball the thread manufacturers, though they have no monop- 

 oly of the business, have experienced increased demands. At 

 the moment, however, the trade in golf ball elastic, like all rub- 

 ber expressly intended for sporting and games, is very slack. 

 The rubber thread used for golf balls is, of course, of the band 

 form approximating to electrical tape, rather than the rectangular 

 type used for weaving purposes. With regard to the manufac- 

 turers of the latter commodity, there has been no alteration in 

 the number and identity of the few firms engaged, and with one 

 alteration the following list of members of the Rubber Thread 

 Manufacturers' Association of today is identical with that of 30 

 or 40 years ago. Wm. Warne & Co., Limited, Tottenham, gen- 

 erally supposed to be the largest producers; Charles Macintosh 

 & Co., Limited; David Moseley & Sons, Limited; The New 

 Liverpool Rubber Co., Limited, and W. & A. Bates, Limited. 

 The main objective of the association, which is quite distinct 

 from the India Rubber Manufacturers' Association, is to fix the 

 selling price of the thread for certain periods. 



SYNTHETIC RUBBER FIASCO. 

 The company known as Synthetic Products. Limited, which 

 •came out with a flourish in 1912, appears already to have 

 reached its end. The concern was to devote its energies to 

 the production of acetone and fusel oil with synthetic rubber 

 as a sort of side line. As a commercial undertaking the 

 company has been anything but a brilliant success, and now, 

 with funds virtually exhausted, and the government in posses- 

 sion of their synthetic rubber factory, presumably for billeting 

 troops, operations are to be suspended until the end of the 

 war. The report states that in the spring of last year the 

 company was approached by important Continental chemical 

 groups for the formation of an International Synthetic Rub- 

 ber Alliance and negotiations were still in progress when the 



war broke out. It is also stated that "an application has 

 been received from a wealthy manufacturing corporation in 

 tile L'nited Stales, with the object of developing our processes 

 there." 



The position as outlined at the annual meeting of the com- 

 pany seems to be that the process does not admit of the 

 production oi .net. me alone. The manufacture of one part 

 of acetone involves the simultaneous production of two parts 

 of butyl alcohol, one of the higher forms of fusel oil. For 

 acetone there is a certain demand, but butyl alcohol is rather 

 an unknown quantity; whilst it might be possible to sell 50 

 tons, it is highly problematical whether a market could be- 

 found tor as much as 1,000 tons. The embarrassing presence 

 of butyl alcohol in such large quantity, however, would not 

 matter so much if only the synthetic rubber process were 

 more advanced, for the former provides the raw material for 

 the latter. The position is. therefore, that acetone cannot be 

 produced without butyl alcohol and the butyl alcohol cannot 

 be utilized because the synthetic rubber process is not suffi- 

 ciently developed. Even if it were, nothing could be done 

 at present, because the government is in possession of the 

 factory containing the synthetic rubber plant. Something 

 was said by one of the directors at the meeting about "train- 

 ing their special bacteria" to concentrate upon the production 

 of acetone and to let butyl alcohol take care of itself, but 

 whether more will be heard of this seems open to doubt. 

 Shareholders appeared to be more concerned with the fact that 

 some £40,000 has been expended on development and experi- 

 mental work without any very tangible results. But perhaps 

 the unkindest cut of all was for the board, which includes 

 the name of Sir William Ramsay, to be informed by the gov- 

 ernment that "they were not a satisfactory body to deal with" 

 in connection with the manufacture of acetone, because they 

 are not the registered owners of the patents under which the 

 company operates. 



NON-INFLAMMABLE SOLVENTS. 



Carbon tetrachloride was proposed a good many years ago 

 as a solvent for making rubber solution which would not be 

 looked at askance by carrying companies, because it is non- 

 inflammable; and it has been regularly used to a limited ex- 

 tent. Probably its use is on the increase, to judge by recent 

 enquiries in the trade for the sources of supply. Except the 

 special property mentioned, it does not seem to have any 

 advantage over benzol and coal tar naphtha, and its toxic 

 properties form a danger which must be guarded against. 

 Of recent years the position held by carbon tetrachloride has 

 been challenged by various organic chlorine compounds, the 

 suitability of which as solvents for rubber was demonstrated 

 two or three years ago by a professor of chemistry at Berlin, 

 who patented these applications in this respect. The prin- 

 cipal drawback to their use has been inability to compete 

 with naphtha as regards price. Quite recently, however, two 

 or three of these bodies, namely, dichlor-ethylene, trichlor- 

 ethylene and tetrachlor-ethane, have been prepared on a 

 large scale by a chemical corporation in England and at a 

 price which closely corresponds to that of benzol. I under- 

 stand that these liquids are used as solvents for certain 

 resinous bodies. I note in "Rogers' Industrial Organic Chem- 

 istry," published in 1912, a note to the effect that the use of 

 the following non-flam solvents for rubber is protected by 

 patent, viz.. carbon-tetrachloride, dichlor-methane, trichlor- 

 ethane and tetrachlor-ethane. In English patent No. 22,704, 

 October 8. 1913, the use of trichlor-ethylene as a rubber sol- 

 vent is protected, so it would seem that as the production of 

 these various chlorine compounds is developed somebody 

 patents their use with rubber. I have experimented with 

 some of these bodies of rather formidable name and find that 

 they are certainly good solvents, but I should think that 



