Chilled Iron Rolls in the Rubber Industry

Abstract

Abstract PROBABLY no single part of a machine is more vital to the manufacture of rubber products than the chilled iron roll. It is used in most operations from the cracking and washing of the crude rubber to the final accurate calendering where the variation is limited to fractional thousandths. As you gentlemen are familiar with the history and development of the rubber industry, it is not necessary to go into any details connected therewith, but it might be well to recall to your mind the fact that the vulcanizing of rubber was developed in the year 1844 at Naugatuck, Connecticut, a town located about ten miles from Ansonia, where Farrel Foundry and Machine Company was started in 1848. The discovery of the vulcanizing process made possible the practical use of rubber, and manufacturing of the product on a small basis very soon started, developing into one of the largest industries of the United States. In Mr. Farrel's diary of 1854 there is an entry regarding his negotiations with a Mr. Goodyear of Naugatuck, and finally the memorandum of agreement of sale of a three-roll 20×48″ calender for $2,400 and a four-roll 20 × 48″ calender for $3,400. The calenders were designed and built but the chilled iron rolls had to be imported from England. There were already some mills in this country which had imported chilled iron rolls for rolling copper and brass products and for calendering paper.