NONFLAMMABLE PAINT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 13 (Supplement)

NONFLAMMABLE PAINT

| JpAINT needs only to bo proof against fire to become the universal preserver. It preserves surfaces against damp, and therefore decay. It enables iron to keep rust at bay, and stone and woodwork to defy the soot and sulphur of the climate of London and other smoky cities. But by the nature of its composition, which includes oil and turpentine, it is a standing invitation to fire. There is no better fuel than wood painted and kept dry. A Dutch inventor is said to have solved the problem of keeping • its strength and ridding it of its weakness by producing a nonflammable paint. In tests of this preparation pieces of

wood and of fabric coated with ordinary paint were attacked by a powerful gas jet. They flared up like a bonfire. Then bits of wood and fabric were painted with this invention. The flame bored through tlieni, but they only smouldered, and when withdrawn from the gas jet the glow at once died out. Such a paint, if it can render wood or canvas or aeroplane wing fabric resistant to sudden and intense bursts of flame, would be a life-saving invention. Further tests of its invulnerability are wanted to assure its value, but at first sight anything in tho nature of nonflammable paint seems as desirable as nonflammable films. So many things now aro only too ready to burst into flame.