WATERPROOF MATCH

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1945, Page 6

WATERPROOF MATCH

U.S.A. CHEMIST’S INVENTION Matches which will light after being soaked in water for eight hours have been developed for the use of American troops in rain-plagued tropics, ancl for beachhead operations, (says the Now York correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald”). They look like ordinary kitchen matches, and, if the box in which they are supplied is lost, will light when scratched on a stone or a shoe. The formula for the transparent, heatresisting coat which makes the matches waterproof has not been made public, but both this and the manufacturing process, which makes, it possible to produce them cheaply in' large quantities, have been made available to the Government, by the Diamond Match Company for the use of competitors. When it became. apparent that a , great part of tire present war was to I be fought in swamp or ocean, and 1 from foxholes filled by rains, a re- i quest came from the Quartermaster- 1 General for a match that would survive drenchings when troops waded \ ashore from landing-craft and function after being stored in damp climates. The formula for a waterproof coat was developed by Raymond D. Cady, chief chemist of the Diamond Company, but problems of manufacture arose. The coating was to be applied’ to kitchen matches, which are normally given fl,ye baths and dips during manufacture to prevent afterglow, insure ready ignition, and put the bulb and eye on the splint of wood. Waterproofing meant an additional dip and necessitated revision of the giant machines that make matches on an endless chain. It was also discovered that if the matches were dragged through a bath of waterproofing, as in other processes in lhe manufacture of matches, they were not really waterproof. The fluid was so thick that, the . wake created by passage of the matches would not close up in time to protect the rear of the matches. Hanging upside down from plates, the matches i are now plunged vertically into the bath. The ordinary kitchen match takes 60 minutes to manufacture from block of wood to box, while 90 minutes are needed to make the waterproof match. The same number—over a million —arc manufactured every hour.