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Made by THERMOS, this typical bulbous flask of the 1940's was made of Roanoid another Bakelite trade name, with see through Acrylic handle ..

The following article appears by kind permission of the Daily Mail. Printed 31st March 1943:

AND SO INTO THE PLASTICS AGE


One day soon, a newly born child will be swathed in plastic clothes, placed gently in a plastic cot, and given a plastic bottle full of milk to imbibe as he stares at the walls of his plastic nursery, bright with colours that will never fade, dustproof,hygienic, and warmed by the rays of the sun through plastic windows, which will admit the life-giving ultra-violet rays,denied in the bad old days of glass.

Plastic Man will have arrived.

As he grows he will cut his teeth on a plastic ring, put aside his plastic bottle for plastic plates and cups, and slowly learn to handle plastic spoons, forks and knives.

His plastic pram will run smoothly on synthetic rubber(plastic)tyres over roads paved with plastic blocks.

Toys, too

NEXT, the Plastic Schoolboy.....
He will learn to write with plastic pens and pencils, learn to read from books printed from plastic matrices. All his toys will be made from plastic materials.

His first bicycle will have a plastic frame, and when he is old enough to drive a motor car almost every part of that,too,will be made from plastic materials. So will the aeroplane he will certainly learn to fly when he is a young man.

When he becomes engaged to be married he will visit a builder with his fiancee to choose a plastic house and study designs for plastic interior decorations. He will never have heard of wallpaper or paint (except plastic varnishes and lacquers).

In middle age he may have to take plastic spectacles and plastic teeth ...

If he has not managed his world successfully enough to prevent wars, he may be killed by a plastic shell or bomb, and certainly, in the end, if he is buried, it will be in a plastic coffin.

Man-made

AND now: what are plastics?
Most people are pretty vague about the subject, although plastics are already a vital factor in everybody's life.

First,they are purely man-made materials, the product of the laboratory. They are not substitutes for natural materials, but completely new ones with many attributes no natural substance possesses.

A rough definition of plastic material is: a substance that can be formed into a desired shape by the application of heat and pressure.

There is an enormous range of plastic materials, each having different qualities and uses. They are divided into two categories: thermo-plastics and thermo-setting plastics.
The difference between these two groups is that thermo-plastics are subject to chemical change at certain temperatures and are thus unsuitable for use in conditions in which these temperatures might be encountered. (They can,however,be heated and reformed.)
Thermo-setting plastics, on the other hand, cannot be chemically affected once they have been formed. (They cannot be reformed by heat and pressure.)

Celluloid - one of the oldest plastics - is an example of a thermo-plastic. "Bakelite," the commonest plastic in use to-day and, probably the most valuable, is an example of a thermo-setting plastic.
Celluloid is derived from cellulose nitrate. "Bakelite" is a synthetic resin derived from coal by various chemical processes.

Plastics until moulded by heat and pressure in steel dies, are in the form of powders rather like coarsely-ground coffee.
At a certain temperature and pressure they are said to "flow," and become the familiar substances from which so many modern articles, from combs to radio cabinets, are made.
Each plastic, however, may be produced in different forms for varying purposes - as a transparent or opaque material,for instance: as a rigid sheet or of a rubber-like consistency.

IN ANY COLOUR ...

PLASTICS may also be produced in any known colour- and the colour is permanent and unchanging, inherent in the material instead of applied to the surface. A damp cloth will remove any stain.

Some plastics are insect-proof,germ-proof, and rot-proof. For that reason they have already been extensively used to replace wood in tropical countries where the white ant caused buildings to collapse and even loosened railway lines by eating away the wooden blocks used to key the rails.

Valuable uses for plastics have been found during the war. In fact, most of the plastics industry is now on active service and many of the new plastics and new uses for old ones will be denied to civilians until after the war.

The Armed Forces already use 120 separate articles made of plastics. One of the best known is the "Perspex" gun-turret of the bomber.

Every civilian gas-mask has a "window" made of plastic material.

One American firm has produced an all-plastic rivetless aeroplane whose speed is said to be seven per cent. higher than that of the same type of machine built from the normal materials.

Even aeroplane engines have plastic parts. Two important components of the famous Wright Cyclone engine are plastic.

The end.

My comment - 58 years later: I certainly feel that someone somewhere had a crystal ball !!!! Many of the "visions" have certainly come to pass when you sit back and think about it .......... JoolZ.

Who made What ? ... Trade Names.

IT'S BAKELITE YOU KNOW !!!! ( WWW.BAKELITEMAN.COM )