Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1887 — Rubber Goods. [ARTICLE]

Rubber Goods.

Indianapolis Journal interview, “The entire rubber clothing trade in this country has passed into the control of two trusts which were organized last summer. jOne of them controls heavy goods amrfhe other gossamers. They have made three or four raises already, and the price is now advanced about fl# per cent, over the figures when the trust was organized. They claim that there is an increase in the quality of the goods, but lam unable to detect it. 01 course, it is difficult to tell much about the quality of rubber goods, but a' man, after some years of practice, can deteet defects with comparative ease. We sent baek 700 garments this summer to a reliable house that would never knowingly send out bad goods. I understand that fully 50,000 were returned to the same house from various parts of the country.” “What do they do with them—make them over?” “No. They can’t. People have queer ideas ;b mt rubber goods. Very often they come in and want us to put a new coating of rubber on their waterproofs. Attaching rubber to clolh is not a simple thing. They have to take the rubber in its raw state, just as it is imported, and soften it in water; then they roll it between heated cylinders, one of which moves faster than the other, until it is like putty; then thev put in the sulphur—all manufactured rubber contains more or less sulphur—and then it is calendered on to the clolh by running them through rollers. At least,, heavy goods are made that way. Gossamer goods have the rubber put on in wsemiiquid shape by a knife process that has to be repeated fifteen or twenty times. The sulphur is put on them afterwards and then they are spread in the sun to cure. Some factories have acres of ground that are used only for exposing light rhbber goods to the sun. After rubber cloth is made up it cannot he put through these processes.” “But you mend rubber goods?” “Yes. That is done with rubber eement. It is a preparation of rubber im soluiion and in compoai.ion with other articles.”