PIN-HEAD INSECT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 59, 29 May 1942, Page 5

PIN-HEAD INSECT

PRODUCES YEARLY 3®,000 TONS, OF RESIN FOR THE WAR Onei hundred tins of bully beel can be coated with the. shellac used in the recording of a sonata (of, say, four 12" records) for the gramophone. And, as shellac has a place in almost every branch of Britain's work for the Avar, British production of gramophone records has been promptly cut down as the wair effort keeps speeding up. Made as a protective covering by a tiny Indian insect only one thirtieth of an inch long, shellac isi the only natural resin produced by animal agency. Thirty thousand tons of it arc Joeing used! every year in scores of industries ranging from tank production to dentistry.

Latest of all developments is it's part as an important constituent in a nciw "dope" for giving aeroplanes greater av cat her resistance, lint this is only onci of. the (>5 new uses which Britain, India and America have I'ound for shellac in the: past ten years. An ideal adhesive for joining metal parts, it sticks togethcr the rotor segments in gyroscopic compasses and coats petrol containers in aircraft and tanks. It also protects fuses, detonators and charges for shells, bombs and mines, and it is used, in Bengal .i la res run! signal lights and rockets. About (50 per cent u[ all the shellac produced goes in protective varnishes Tor machinery. electrical ecruipmrnt, footwear and servi.ee cups, photographic .materials, wood. ::;:;.vr. m'ia! and inlirics i'or paints. inks and even I'or coaling pilis. To provide as much sheiiae as pus- , s!f.'!e for these vr.xr nsrs s<:tne olhor {K , ::;. , : , time orcliict..';: nhicli neei! it --na.'l varnish, hair i ; yc, metal foil U:;v oh'jcso an ,! piiiying c;ii'ds — w«..< 1 have it) go by J.e l::>ard.