GLASS FROM GAS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23587, 14 March 1942, Page 8

GLASS FROM GAS

SUBMARINE PERISCOPES People in Britain are looking at the war through eyeglasses made from transparent plastics, the material derived from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, ami so on. familiar to the uublic as ashtrays, hand-torches, wireless sets, and electric switchboards. This substitute is not being used because there is any shortage of glass, but because it is quicker to mould the pla.-tic material than to grind down vlass to the required measurements of The lenses; ami speed, of course, is essential in Britain’s war-time industries. . The new plastic lenses arc also being titled for binoculars, submarine penscopes, and optical parts in tanks. Optics is only one of the new uses to which plastic? are being applied in Britain since the war began. Plastic gear-wheels and bearings are appsa.r‘ng in the factories; fire-spotters are wearing elastic helmets, and 10ft dinghies without a single nail are being produced by moulding plywood impregnated with resin. They are stronger and lighter than the old type, completely waterproof and smooth “skinned.”

When peace returns Britons may even have plastic houses. The Scottish Special Housing Association has osked the British Government to erect an experimental house in which the structural framing, walls, floors, window frames, doors, roof-sheeting, and so on are all made of plastics.