NEW TYRE TREAD

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3278, 21 June 1943, Page 3

NEW TYRE TREAD

ASSISTING WAR EFFORT FACTORY OPENED AT PETONE Claims that the .intensive campaign embarked on in New Zealand after rubber supplies from Singnpo’e and Malaya, ha'd been cut off had saved the transport of this country 25.000,000 running miles, 2,500,000 gallons cf petrol, and 8000 heavy duty tyres annually were made by Mr R. Semuie, formerly Minister of Transport, when he officially opened at Petor.e the new tyre tread factory. The combined capacity of the plant and another operated at Wanganui will be 10 ) ('OO treads per annum, using 500 tons of salvage rubber and 20 tons only of gum rubber to bond the treads to the tyres, which arc guaranteed "’or <’oo'l miles. Commenting that transport was i p .e mainspring of economic, social and industrial life, the Minister said the use of rubber was indispensable on land, On sea and in the air. He congratu-

lated all associated with the enterprise on. the methods they had evolved to deal with scrap rubber and contribute to maintaining the transport system and to the successful prosecution of the war effort. Processing of the tread was demonstrated to a large number of visitors, it being mentioned that one tyre which had been treated was now under test in Washington, where it had already been run 5000 miles on a taxi. Only soz. of raw rubber were required to bond the tread to a worn tyreless than it took to make a hot-water bottle. It was not merely a wartime industry which was being established, but one in which continuous research was planned. There was no waste of any of the tyre material, band, slab and rib treads being used, and it was estimated that there was enough salvage rubber available in New Zealand to make 2,000,000 treads.