NEW SILK STOCKINGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23887, 15 August 1939, Page 17

NEW SILK STOCKINGS

Women's hose, made in a rubber factory and developed along the same lines as the strongest cords in automobile tyres are the latest thing to coi from rubber research laboratories in Akron, Ohio, United States. Twenty-four times as strong as ordinary stockings, the hose are now being placed on the retail markets in test cities throughout the United States after successful experimentation covering many months. Unique because of the tensile strength which has been added to them, the hose have been strengthened by one of two new methods of prolonging wear—namely, the process of increasing the twist and bonding the material—as is done in the gum dipping of cord tyres. The other method which has been tried by other stocking companies is that of developing stronger stitching in the hose. Mr E. C. Brewster, director of the company making the rubberised product, said that the hose are made of genuine, transparent pure silk, like any other stockings, but that the process by which they are formed is exclusive and new.

' The silkworm, in spinning its cocoon," he says, "binds the filaments together with a gum-like substance. Raw silk in this state is stiff and unwearable, and it is necessary to remove the gummy substance which Nature designed as necessary for the strength of the silk, thus leaving the tiny silk filaments unprotected, loose, and brittle.

" Competent authorities have felt for a long time that if some way was found to protect the silk strand, greater wear would result. "Many months ago our compan> set out to find the answer to this problem. The chemists worked at the problem. New combinations were tried, new concoctions of latex film, rubber derivative, and other plastic materials were, used in the experiments. " Finally this process was discovered, and steps were immediately taken to patent it." Laboratory tests showed, Mr Brewster said, that, while being worn, a stocking is in constant motion. The thread of each little loop in the hose is sawing away at the thread in the adjoining loop. The process used in the manufacture o"f the new stockings applies a soft, protective, invisible film to each strand of silk, permitting the loops to slide smoothly over each other and minimising the sawing effect. Tests have proved that repeated washings do not remove this film, and that it also protects from the damaging effect of pe*rspiration.