COMING: THE RUSTLESS AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1928, Page 6

COMING: THE RUSTLESS AGE.

A rustless age, it seems, is on the way. Considerable progress is very quietly being made towards the production on a commercial scale of a rustless material or alloy which will indefinitely resist corrosion under most conditions. The stage is being approached, we are assured, when the material will be cheap enough for use on a lari'e scale. Already five steel companies are producing

"rustless iron" —a low-carbon steel high in chromium content. The demand is growing constantly and the interest in it is expanding rapidly. It can now be made in bars, plates, shapes, sheets, wire, castings and in many other forms. Conceive the possibilities if such a rustless and lon7enduring, even when brightly polished, material replaces steel on bridges, buildings, fences, sheet metal buildings, and so on.

Three processes for its manufacture are row available. The patent situation, however, is intricate and a hindrance to development, but this is gradually being straightened out. From Germany come rumours of a low-cost product. Is the rustless age approaching? Without doubt the age-long dreams of engineers and metallurgists are slowly coming true. By the n«e of su-h a material—or possibly the strong, light aluminium alloys—corroding cars, rusting bridges and other crumbling materials may soon be things of the past.