Plastics in War

> A special blackout street lamp has been announced by General Electric. It is made of plastics and cast iron, with no glass, hence is fairly immune to shrapnel. The lamp is 9 candle power, gives one-sixtieth the illumination of full moonlight, i.e., barely enough to distinguish a pedestrian at 40 feet.

> A really transparent plastic window pane, which will withstand the explosion of a 150-lb. bomb eight feet away, has been developed by Monsanto to end the danger of flying glass during air raids. The pane is made of 16-mesh wire screen sandwiched between two sheets of cellulose acetate plastic. It can be easily mounted in standard window frames.

> Printing plates made of a light strong plastic, to replace ten times their weight in metallic stereotypes and electrotypes, are announced by Theodore Moss, Inc. The master plate is still made of metal but any number of duplicate plates can be made by molding under pressure. The inked impression is sharp and accurate even for fine half-tones, but for direct printing the plastic plates do not have the endurance of metal plates.

> Guns are now being wrapped in special cellophane immediately after finishing, instead of being immersed in oil and grease. Du Pont also announces that its familiar cellulose bottle hood is being used to close the open ends of fuel lines and other tubing during assembly and shipping.

>A new plastic to replace rubber in raincoats, golf balls, baby pants, footwear, gloves, hospital sheeting, garden-hose, electrical insulation and even gas masks was announced by Hercules Powder Co. last week. Such uses formerly consumed 60,000 tons of rubber a year. The new plastic is a soft form of ethyl cellulose, made of cotton linters or wood pulp and grain alcohol. It is as pliable, flexible, nonporous and durable as rubber, but is not so elastic or resilient, and tears more easily. Hence it is not good for tires or tubes. But it is flameproof and does not lose its flexibility at 70DEG below zero, thus is useful in high-altitude bombing planes.

> Drums for shipping heavy oils and greases formerly used 2,000 tons of steel a year. Now Standard Oil of Indiana uses plywood drums, laminated with plastics.

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