Arizona republican., 1899-03-14
RUBBER FROM OILS.
New Substitute for the Decreasing
 Genuine Article.
An English Enterprise Which Bids Fair to Supply the IncreasfnG Demand for a Resilient
 Material.

A new industry which has just been
 established upon an apparently firm
 basis in England uses for it's raw mate
 rial linseed oil or any of the other vege-
 table oils of similar properties. It
 promises to become of wide impor-
 tance because it's products partake of
 many of the qualities of india rubber
 and gutta percha, the supplies of which
 show constant tendency to fall below
 the growing demands. That oils of this
 sort have in them qualities of high use
 fulness was discovered ages ago, when
 they were first used for paints, and the
 new industry takes advantage of the
 same quality of hardening by oxidiza-
 ton.
 Linseed oil has been used for paints and varnishes for generations. It is
 we'll known that when the oil is spread
 out in a thin layer exposed to the air it absorbs oxygen and becomes very
 hard. When the oil is left in bulk eX- posed to the air it gradually becomes fatty" as it is called technically, or of a gummy consistency. Exposures of different periods will give any grade of hardness between these two. Other vegetable oils act in the same way, and many attempts have been made to take com mmercial advantage of these quali- ties. Some, like the manufacture of oil- cloths and linoeum, have been very successful. The difficulty experienced heretofore in attempting to use the oXidized oils for other purposes has been the fact that it was mechanically impossible to accomplish the perfect and graded combination of the oxygen with the oil, as might be needed for the different. purposes. The general meth cd adopted was to allow the oil to drip from the top to the bottom of q wide, suspended sheet of scrim, an open meshed textile fabric, while current of air was driven upon it. By this method the surface of the oil was solidified, but the action did not extend all through it and there was, therefore, portion of unaffected oil held within, which it was known might be made of a more perfect product.
 MT. Charles Grist, of England, has perfected system by which it is as serted that this trouble is entirely over come, and a large factory has been built where many articles are manu- factured from the oils solidified by his process. His method of treating the oil is to saturate quantity of tow with it, and then, in centrifugal machine, throw out every particle of the oil eX- cept that which clings in minute globules to the fiber of the tow itself. The punches of tow are then put on grids of metal in chamber. where warm air is forced through them and in 24 hours the oil is thoroughly oXidized. The material is then ground up, mixed with any desired ccloring matter and finally rolled out into sheets, in which condition it resemb bles india rubber and possesses many of the qualities of rub Der and gutta percha. It is as resilient as rubber, but not as elastic, is inn pervious to chemical action, and with stands heat up to 24O degrees Fehren heit, and 1t can be vulcanized by the same processes used for rubber and gutta percha. It has high electrical in suiating qualities and can be used for ca ble wire coverings and other forms of electrical insulators, and it is made into wheel tires, which are said to be equal 10 those of rubber. It can be dissolved in ethereal spirits of all kinds, and from these solutions it can be applied a s coverings for fabrics of any SOrt.-N. Y. Sun. 1