GLASS FROM GAS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22215, 7 March 1942, Page 6

GLASS FROM GAS

USE IN PERISCOPES LONDON, Jan. 1. People in Britain are looking at the war through eyeglasses made from transparent plastics, the material derived from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and so on, familiar to the public 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 plastic material than to grind down glass to the required measurements of the lenses; and speed is essential in Britain’s war-time industries. The new plastic lenses are also being fitted for binoculars, submarine periscopes and optical parts in tanks. Optics is only one of the new uses to which plastics are being applied in Britain since the war began. Plastic gear-wheels and bearings are appearing in the factories; fire-spotters are wearing plastic 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 asked 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.