GUTTA PERCHA WORKS. [From the Weekly Chronicle.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 558, 7 December 1850, Page 4

GUTTA PERCHA WORKS. [From the Weekly Chronicle.]

Wharf-road, City-road, where the gutta percha works are situated, is one of the busiest localities of London. It runs along the Grand Junction Canal, about midway between the Eagle in the City-road, and the Angel at Islington, and seems to have some especial attraction for patentees — for almost side by side stand patent sawing mills, patent planing works, Brett's patent bottle capsule manufactory, patent firewood works, and the extensive premises of the patent gutta percha company, the tall chimney of which seems more for ornament, or a guide to the works, than

any other use, as but little smoke is ever seen above it. Nevertheless, it is die chimney of two sixty-borse boilers, made by Galloway, of Manchester, under a recent patent, and which evaporates 11 lbs of water to the lib of coal, and effects such complete combustion as to prove that great clouds of smoke are not essential to manufactures. These boilers work two very powerful, and a little auxiliary steam engine, which drive the whole machinery of a large and busy factory, employing from 120 to 150, and on occasions, 200 hands, men and boys, skilled and unskilled, which pays some £10,000 a year in wages, and works up into almost endless variety of shapes and articles, useful and ornamental, some thousands of cwts. annually of gutta percha, finding profitable employment for shopkeepers and dealers in every town, and almost every village in the kingdom, giving a new impulse to industry amongst the natives of the Malay peninsula, the islands of Singapoie, Sumatra, Borneo, and the entire range of wooded islands from Sumatra to the Philippines ; bringing designs of artistic excellence, and articles of ornament, usefulness, and taste within the reach, through the simple magic of cheapness, of multitudes, and giving a new direction to the applications of machinery and skill of invention. Up to 1842 the gutta percha tree grew almost unmolested in the forests of Singapore, and the thick woods of the Malayan Peninsula. Occasionally, some native felled one and tapped it to make a knife or hatchet handle. Iv that year one of these handles was seen by Dr. William Montgomerie, then assistantsurgeon to the residency at Singapore. In 1843 he sent some specimens to the Society of Arts in London, who awaided him their gold medal. The first export from Singapore was scarce 2cwts., since then upwards of 40,000 cwts. have been sent, almost entirely to this country, and the annual export from all places now exceeds 14,000 cwts., by far the largest part which comes to England. The tall chimney of the gutta percha works is, therefore, important in marking the rapid rise of a new article of commerce and a new manufacture. In the yard are several stacks of raw gutta percha, in lumps from the size of a flitch of bacon to large paving stones, and very much the colour of new leather. The first process of manufacture is the cleansing of the material, to accomplish which it is cut into slices, boiled, rolled, torn to pieces, dropped into cold water, and after due settling there the pure material floating on the top is skimmed off, and the refuse, for which as yet no good use has been discovered, thrown away. The slicing is accomplished by a wheel of solid iron, eight inches in thickness, and übout the size of the wheel of a large waggon oi wa-ter-cart, fitted with slantingly projecting knives like the cutter of a spoke shave. The wheel runs round at the rate of about two hundred turns a minute, and having three knives shaves the gutta percha, which is forced up close against it, at the rate of 600 cuts a minute, into slices like thin pieces of collared brawn. The steam which drives the slicing-wheel and sets all the other machinery of the factory in motion is conveyed to the vats and does the boiling. A considerable amount of the impurities is left in the boiling vats, and the rolling and tearing is managed by pressing the hot mass, which is about the consistence of very tough dough, into a hopper at the bottom of which two small rollers seize hold of it, roll it between them, and pass it on to a larger roller set with rows of jagged teeth like rakes, or a saw with the teeth turned down, and which, whirling at the rate of 100 turns a minute, tears up the gutta percha into little shreds like tan in a tan-pit. After the cold water purification the material is again warmed to about 180 degrees to 200 degrees, and, in soft masses about the size of an ordinary three-foot bed-bolster, and looking very like .soft cobblers'- wax — it is locked up in the kneading machines, the purpose of which is to force out all air and water, and to make the gutta as smooth as well-mixed paste. These kneading machines, of which 16 or 18 are ranged side by side in a double row upon the floor, are very thick, strong, round ironboxes, about three feet long, and a foot and-a-half deep. Inside each box turns round a ribbed iron roller, leaving but little room between itself and the sides of the box. The lid of the box, fastened by very strong hinges and bolts, has two good sized holes in it for the escape of steam and air. When the box is packed, and the lid down, the ribbed roller presses the gutta percha with great force against the sides, so much so that the bolts are sometimes forced and broken. In these machines the gutta percha is rolled and kneaded at a temperature not below 180 degrees for not less than four hours, and it is then in a fifstate for the future purposes of manufacture, whether to be rolled into sheets, to be moulded, stamped, or fashioned into all the hundred varieties of articles for which it has already been brought into use, or to be made into cord or tubing. In the form of sheeting of various widths anJ thicknesses, it is most

readily applicable to several purposes. It is so formed by being passed between two rollers of the requisite width, which answer the purpose of the cook's rolling-pin with paste, and which regulate the thickness by the spdce between them. From the rollers, the soft sheet is carried along by a revolving band of india rubber or gutta percha cloih, tightly stretched, of about 50 feet in length, which rolling over a drum at the end, carries back the sheet the whole distance again with the other side up. By this time the sheet is cool and hard, and is rollpd round a drum until the required length is attained, when it is cut, the drum removed, and another put in its' stead to wind up the next length. When the sheet is of too great a thickness to become cool in merely travelling the distance, it is blown upon as it passes by a fan, like that of a winnowing machine. In connexion with the rolling machine is a very simple contrivance for cutting the sheets into bands of any width, from that required for a shoe-sole, or an eng'ne band, to harness straps. The process of making tubes, which is carried on in a little building by itself, and with a small separate steam-engine to work it, is cuiious. A. tube, with a piston to fit it closely, like a syringe, is filled with warm gutta percha ; at the side of the tube, close to the bottom, is a hole to which the tube mould is screwed on. The tube mould is not more than two or three inches long, is of the required width ior the outside of tbe tube, and has a solid piece in the centre, the thickness of the inside of the tube. A piece of paper rolled up, and a pencil put standing in the middle, will give tbe idea. Then, as the piston is pressed down, the gutta percha is forced through the mould aud comes out a tube. It is clear, however, that it would not keep the tube shape until it cooled, unless it were filled up and kept without pressure either from within or without, apparently no easy matter to contrive, but, in practice, very simply arrived at, by winding the tube along a little canal of water, about 50 feet in length. The water fills the tube, presses it equally on all sides, and cools and hardens it so that the man attending at the mould winds it, finished, found a drum close to his hand, and by a recent improvement in the machine, double cylinders being used, a continuous tube can be made of any length, thus saving all tbe difficulty and expense of joints. Cord is made after tbe same fashion, but being solid of course requires only a mould to regulate its thickness. The strength of such cord or tubing is remarkable. A tested string not thicker than a human hair will bear a weight of 2lbs. A tube of inch and a half bore was tried at Stirling with the water pipes, the pressure being about 450 feet ; neither joints nor tubing yielded, but the same pressure burst the rivets from the leather hose, and scattered them in all directions. Another valuable excellence of the gutta percha, is its resistance of frost. Experiment has proved that water will be frozen in leaden pipes in one-third of the time that, at the same degree of cold, it will freeze in gutta percha. Nor is this all, the gntta percha keeps the water pure and wholesome, the lead poisons it. It may be passed unnoticed, but it is still certain that leaden pipes and leaden-lined cisterns give people wafer with quite sufficient poison in it to be in the long run seriously injurious to boil their meal and vegetables, to drink and make their tea with ; whereas from gutta percha pipes, and cisterns lined with gutta percha, the water would come as pure as from glass. We urge this poiut, because we believe it to be important to the public health. To return to tbe manufacture. Ornamental mouldings, medallions, pen trays, figure watch stands, letters for shop fronts, bread trenchers, bread baskets, and a whole host of such things are stamped from copper dies taken in electro-type, or from moulds cut in elm or box wood. Some of these dies are of great weight — one for the frame of a small mirror weighing about 3 cwt., and another for a bread basket, with an appropriate border of wheat and Indian corn about if cwt. Plain, circular, unornamented articles — such as fire and stable buckets, bowls, basins, bottles, sou'wester aud miners' hats, and a whole host of utensils, are made more simply. The inside mould stands in the centre of a little round iron table the middle piece of which pulls out like a drawer. The requisite quantity of gutta percha is placed upon the inside mould and the outside mould, which fits over the inside one like an extinguisher, with just space enough between them to make tbe thickness of the article, is forced down by a powerful screw, and at the same time the fable is spun round which at once gives the article a finished surface, and forms tbe requisite rim. This done the outer mould is raised, the slide pulled forward, and the article, which only fuitber requires a little trimming at the edge, taken off the inner mould, when the slide is pushed back, and so the work goes on. Amongst the special applications of machinery to gutta percha purposes is that of Wil- ' son's paper-cutting machine, to cutting the

sheets and bands into squares of the proper size for shoe sol«s. The sole is afterwards cut out by a .sharp .edged frame of the proper shape, and which is pressed down with sufficient force to cut through from three to half a dozen soles at once. Some idea of the demand for which may be formed from the fact that at the present moment there are not less than thirty eight tons of soles piled up in the ware rooms of the factory to season, for winter use, for gutta percha, like leather, improves by keeping. Everywhere that men are exposed to wet and cold, everywhere that common utensils are liable to severe usage, everywhere that decoration needs richness of design, delicacy of ornament, or faithful imitation of even the time marked gram and surface of old oak, is this far brought new material of real value, and to be found ready for use at the works. Some of the more recent and various applications, however, deserve especial mention. Both the Arctic expedition sent out by the Admiralty and that of Captain Forsyth, fitted at the cost of Lady Franklin herself, have taken a sort of sledge boats of gotta percha ; the gutta percha on the skate of the sledge will not freeze to the snow or ice like iron. When floated as a boat, it will carry with safety five or six persons and a large stock of provisions, and when not needed either as sledge or boat it folds up, and, weighing no more than 18lbs can be carried with ease, and forms a close wrapper, or sort of bed tent, safe against the cold, that three or four men may sleep under. These sledge boats are made of sheet gutta percha one sixteenth of an inch in thickness, are 7 feet 6 inches in length at top, by 6 feet 6 inches at bottom, and 3 feet 10 inches by 2: feet 18 inches in breadth, and 2 feet in depth. Boots also were made for the expedition much lighter than a common leather boot, and most of all materials resistant against cold. But it is not only for such specially contrived and rarely needful boats that gutta percha is useful, boats of any size can be made of it, perfectly watertight, buoyant to an extraordinary degree, and so completely one tough piece,, that they run no risk by any knocking against rocks, or a ship's side, of being stove in. They? are therefore invaluable amongst breakers and as life boats, and no ship should go to sea without them. Someidea of their buoyancy may be had from the tested fact that whilst 281bssinks to the middle mark an ordinary Admiralty buoy, it requires 60lbs to sink to the same mark a gutta percba buoy of the same size. Amongst the new applications, a very simple one is the manufacture of travelling trunksshaped of convenient size for package a^a carriage, and which, once the things are out, forms a good-sized splash-bath, or the lesser ones a foot bath ; so that in fact a man may bathe in his portmanteau, and then pack uj» his clothes in it* With mere mention that gutta percha is made into bottles, jars, and carboys, for carriage of all sorts of acids, and that recently it has come into use, we believe,, at the suggestion of Mr. Wilson, managing; director of Price's Patent Candle Factory,, for lining casks for the carriage of muriatic acid, saving the accidents, injury, and lossso frequent from breakage of the ordinary glass carboys, and enabling large quantities of the acid to be carried with perfect safety for any distance by ship or railway, we pass on to state that, probably owing to its resistance of moisture, it is a most perfect non-conductor of electricity, and is now largely used in covering the wires of the electric telegraph. It is also an extraordinary conductor of sound t at one end of a tube seventy feet in length we have heard, as distinctly as if it were closeat hand, the tickiag of a watch placed in theopposite end. Conversation can with ease be carried on through a tube a quarter of mile in* length ; speaking trumpets of great lightness and power are made of it, and persons long: deaf to all ordinary speaking have found that a little gutta percha bearing trumpet hasbrought them out of the loneliness of noiseless life. Nor is this all : chapels and churches-ill-built for sound, have, by the easy contrivance of a bell-mouth tube below the rim of the pulpit, become of easy hearing for the entire congregation ; and from what we have ourselves seen and tried, we have not a shadow of a doubt that at very little cost, and without in any way interfering with its appearance, the new House of Lords could, by the mere arrangement of a few gutta percha tubes and cords, be made a most excellent hearing place, both for their lordships and their historians the reporters.

writing.