RUBBER-PAVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 359, 21 May 1928, Page 14

RUBBER-PAVED

STREETS OF THE FUTURE TALK WITH GOODYEAR CHIEF A new use for rubber in America is the paving of streets and bridges, with crude-rubber blocks. Mr. William Stephens, general superintendent of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company, who arrived yesterday by the Aorangi, had something to say regarding the field of research in rubber. He is on his way to Australia and then to the Malay States and Ceylon, where his company has large interests. The making of motor tyres and tubes in the company’s premises at Akron, Ohio, U.S.A., has reached astonishing proportions. There, every day, 60,000 tyres and tubes are made. In addition to this the company produces 250,000 pairs of rubber heels a day. Everybody wears rubber heels in America, hence the enormous output. Last year the total number manufactured by the Goodyear Company ran into 84,000,000 pairs. The Goodyear Company has extended its activities to many parts of the world and yesterday Mr. Stephens gave some of the production figures from the various plants. At Los Angeles 10,000 tyres and tubes were manufactured every day; at the Toronto (Canada) factory 9,000 a day; at "Wolverhampton (England), 2,000 a day; and in Sydney, the latest factory to be built, 900 a day. “The duty on tyres and tubes has forced us to build overseas,” said Mr. Stephens. “In the future, I think, the New Zealand supplies may come from Australia, as there is not sufficient demand in New Zealand for us to build here.” In order to keep up its supply of raw rubber the company owns large plantations in Malay. There are 30,000 acres of trees at present in use and the company has just purchased another 29,000 acres. Mr. Stephens mentioned that at the present time there is a move to use blocks of crude rubber for streetpaving. This is possible because of the price of rubber to-day. In the United States these rubber blocks are used on bridges to break the vibration, and have proved to be successful. Experiments are also being made m the use of rubber bearings on railway cars to break the shock. These will be placed between the running flange and the hub of the wheel, He says that the question of rubber bearings for fast motor-launches is also being investigated. “The biggest man in industry to-day is the chemical engineer,” said Mr. Stephens. “By a new process which has been discovered old rubber can now be reclaimed, which means that a vast amount of it can be used over again.”