IT WAVES THE HAIR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 38, 10 April 1942, Page 3

IT WAVES THE HAIR

AND ALSO GIVES AIRCRAFT

PARTS TO BRITAIN

A process used in woman's hairwaving is helping to build aircraft for Britain. It i'S a form of powder metallurgy, perhaps the greatest innovation in metal-working for thousands of years, in which, instead of using molten metal, articles are made from fine metallic powders and pressed into solid and durable shape. For ladies' "perms" a metal powder is packed in little sachets of absorbent paper. When moistened, a reaction between the metal and certain chemicals generates the precise amount of heat required, so setting the hair in Avaves. In making parts for aeroplanes, guns ships, tanks and other equipment, powder metallurgy has two great advantages: it is verj' light find it is self-oiling—that is to say, the metal has fine pores which can absorb oil and retain it almost indefinitely. The pioneer of powder metallurgy was an Englishman, Mr W. H. Wollaston, who in 1829 worked out a powder process for platinum because the melting point of this metal was too high for the furnaces then in use. It is being used in. Great Britain to-day not only for making metal parts but also for paints, printing inks, metal spraying, soldering and brazing, hardening concrete, dental alloys, fireworks explosives and diamond tools. In the near future it may be possible to use it for a ribbonless typewriter in which porous type faces Foak up the -ink and stamp it on paper.