Manufacture of a Guttapercha like Substance.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 25th July, 1899-Accepted, 26th Aug., 1899
BE BURTICATION.
Manufacture of a Guttapercha like Substance.
I, ADOLF GENTZSCH, of No. 1, Stiftgasse, Vienna VII, Mineralogist, do hereby
declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
Guttapercha consists chiefly of a waxy substance, rubber or caoutchouc, a kind
of resin, and oils.
Attempts to manufacture guttapercha by merely mixing solutions of these con-
stituents have not produced even an approximately good material.
It is known that natural guttapercha must be freed from the resin which it
contains if it is not to become prematurely brittle and useless for electrical
insulation, particularly for deep sea cables.
Caoutchouc cannot be melted without loss of all its valuable properties; when
heated in the air it merely burns; when heated in a retort it yields an oily
substance (so-called caoutchouc oil) and thereby loses its valuable properties.
This invention relates to the manufacture of a homogeneous substance having
all the properties of guttapercha by mixing and at the same time intimately
kneading together caoutchouc and vegetable wax, oil being added if necessary, at
first at a moderate, but later at a steadily rising temperature which, however,
does not exceed the melting point of the wax.
canising and is a solid and elastic mass for the manufacture of which no solvent
The product requires no vul-
is necessary either for the caoutchouc or for the wax.
to the mixture before the kneading operation.
If oil is used it is added
Since waxes and caoutchouc have not always the same properties, products
even from the same source behaving differently, it is obvious that an exact pro-
portion for the constituents of the mixture cannot be laid down once for all; it
is necessary by means of small scale experiments and by taking samples to
regulate the quality of the product.
The following examples illustrate the process:-
Wax of high melting point, either alone or mixed with oil of high melting point, or
with oil coagulable by heat, after having been freed from adhering water and other
impurities by fusion, is mixed with crude caoutchouc in about the proportion of
50 wax to 50 caoutchouc (or 40 wax to 10 oil and 50 caoutchouc) and the mixture is
kneaded while it is gradually heated to a maximum temperature of 200° C.
The kneading is best effected in a kneading machine which can be heated, and
s continued until a sample is found to be homogeneous, which can be recognised
with certainty after some practice.
There are very few natural waxes and oils of sufficiently high melting point,
ike palm wax (carnauba wax), maize oil or wood oil, and it is not desirable to be
ependent on these products alone; it is therefore advantageous to raise the melt-
ng point of this or of another wax according to Gentzch's Specification No. 4902
f 1899, or of this or another oil according to his Specification No. 16597 of
893, before such wax or oil is incorporated with the caoutchouc.
As another example palm wax (carnauba wax), without oil and either in its

page_text: natural form or after the treatment described in the above named specification, is
mixed with caoutchouc in about equal quantities.
The caoutchouc to be used is preferably dried in any known manner.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is:
-
1. The herein described manufacture of a guttapercha-like substance by inti-
mately kneading together at a continuously rising temperature (up to 200° C.)
caoutchouc and wax of high melting point, such wax being used either alone or
admixed with an oil of high melting point, or with an oil which becomes solid
when heated.
2. The guttapercha-like substance manufactured as above set forth.