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CHAPTER X. 



MANUFACTURE OF VULCANIZED GUM-ELASTIC. 



Steam and water-power. Capital. Machinery. Cutting and washing machine. Compounding. 

 Crushing and grinding machine. Warming machine. Spreading. Manufacture by dissolving. 

 Manipulation. Heating. Solarization. Curing or tanning. Cleansing the goods. Peforating. 

 Napping. Embossing. Japanning, bronzing, printing with type, copperplate, blocks, litho- 

 graphy, &c. Gilding. Plating. Cording. Thread cutting. Shirring. Moulding. Hollow- 

 ware moulds. Concluding remarks. 



The manufacture of India rubber goods by the process of 

 heating, or vulcanizing, having become extensively known and 

 practiced, especially in the United States, it is not supposed 

 that more than a general description of the process, and the art 

 of manufacturing the articles, will be considered interesting. 



It is not believed that the interests of those licencees who 

 have engaged in the manufacture in a legal and honorable way, 

 by acknowledging the claims of the inventor, will be injuriously 

 affected by the circulation of information on the subject, but 

 that the legal advantages which they possess, and the skill 

 already acquired, will be amply sufficient to guarantee to them 

 the departments of the business in which they have respectively 

 engaged. 



Although no important fact has been withheld relating to the 

 different processes in the manufacture, it is evident that no 

 instructions or recipe can be given that will serve instead of ex- 

 perience. No branch of industry is more fascinating and in- 

 teresting when learned, and no one can be more perplexing or 

 intricate before skill is acquired in, it, than this. 



One of the first questions of importance with regard to any 

 branch of industry in which numbers of operatives are em- 

 ployed, is, whether it is a healthful one. 



In answer, it may be said, as relates to gum-elastic in general, 

 that no occupation is more so. It is important, however, that 



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