Ivory billiard balls

John Hyatt was trying to make imitation ivory billiard balls from nitrocellulose and camphor. Instead of ivory , he got a new substance. He called it celluloid . Celluloid has serious disadvantages it is brittle, inflammable and discolours with age. 

In the 1870s, ivory was a favorite of the rich and famous, who used it for items of jewelry, piano keys, billiard balls, etc. and there was a desperate need to find new materials for some of these applications. In fact, a substantial prize ( 10,000) was offered for the first person who could find a substitute for ivory billiard balls. John Wesley Hyatt (now there s a name that conjures up an image of an aging preacher or country and western singer— well at least to your authors ), a bona fide American entrepreneur, was motivated, but did not win this prize. Nonetheless he is credited with the invention of Celluloid the first true thermoplastic. 

The inventor Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920) was bom in New York. When a New York firm offered a prize of 10,000for a substitute for ivory billiard balls, Hyatt improved the synthesis of pyroxylin. He changed its name to celluloid and patented a method for making billiard balls. He did not, however, win the prize. 

Around 1870, John Wesley Hyatt, an American printer, attempted to win a 10000 prize by developing a substitute material for ivory billiard balls. Hyatt mixed cellulose nitrate with camphor, heated it under pressure and shaped it The product, known as celluloid, could be used to form boxes, wipe-clean linen shirt collars and cuffs, ping-pong balk, dolls and dental plates, which were made from ebonite in the early nineteenth century (Figure 2.1). Because cellulose nitrate softens on warming (thermoplasticity) it was not an ideal material for fake teeth, which curfed when the wearer drank hot coffee. Its... 

Hyatt, John Wesley (1837-1920) During the 1860s John Wesley Hyatt developed cellulose nitrate plastic and successfully produced and marketed billiard balls as a less expensive alternative to ivory billiard balls. See cellulose nitrate plastic plastic history. 

The first of the thermoplastic synthetic polymers to be developed was celluloid, made by combining nitrated cellulose (pure cotton subjected to nitric acid) and camphor (C10H16O), a plasticizer. The motivation was a search for a replacement for the ivory used in making billiard balls. It became a commercial product circa 1865, and is still used for making ping-pong balls. 

He named this plastic Parkesine. The Parkesine was later named celluloid in USA. In America, during 1868, a prize of 10000 was offered for discovery of any substitute for Ivory J.W. Hyatt made a billiard ball from nitrocellulose and camphor and called it celluloid and won this prize. Celluloid is highly inflammable as nitrocellulose is an explosive so attempts were made to discover other plastics. 

In 1838 Macintosh and Hancock at Goodyear discovered how to take tacky naturai rubber from rubber trees and react it with suifur in the presence of heat to vuicanize the rubber to a nonstick compound that couid be usefui for items such as boots, rain coats, and tires. Synthetic rubber research started between Worid Wars I and II and progressed very quickly after World War II. The modern birth of soiid synthetic poiymers for commerciai products may be traced to Hyatt in 1868. He discovered how to react cellulose nitrate and camphor to produce a hard piastic that was used to fabricate billiard balls because ivory had become scarce. 

The best billiard balls were made from elephant tusks, which are beautiful and have good bounce. Ivory was also used for combs, buttons, collar stays for shirts, cigarette holders, chess pieces, and many other ornamental articles. Ivory is obtained by hunting and killing elephants to extract their teeth, which is especially valuable from old and mature males. The extinction of elephants was avoided when John Wesley invented celluloid by combining nitrocellulose with camphor. 

The development of plastics accompanied synthetic fibers. The first synthetic plastic with the trade name Celluloid was made in 1870 from a form of nitrocellulose called pyroxylin, the same substance used to produce the first rayon. Celluloid was developed in part to meet the demand for expensive billiard balls, which at the end of the nineteenth century were produced from ivory obtained from elephant tusks. John Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920) combined pyroxylin with ether and alcohol to produce a hard substance called collodion. Hyatt s collodion, like Bernigaut s original rayon, was unstable and potentially explosive. He solved this problem by adding camphor to the collodion to produce a stable hard plastic he called Celluloid. 

Company, makers of billiard balls. Previously, billiard balls had been made of ivory obtained from elephant tusks. Because of the devastation of the elephant population in Africa, however, ivory was becoming more difficult to obtain, and Phelan and Collender were looking for an inexpensive substitute. Hyatt discovered that substitute when he found a way (nearly identical to that of Parkes s) to dissolve nitrated cellulose in a mixture of alcohol, ether, and camphor. Hyatt called his product celluloid. Although he was not awarded the 10,000-prize, he was honored later in life for this and other discoveries with the Perkin Medal of Honor from the Society of Chemical Industry. 

An early important commercial use for the cellulosics was to replace ivory in making billiard balls, and while today this certainly would win approval by green enthusiasts it is not far-fetched to imagine at the time some habitues of the tables grumbling that the plastic balls just were not the same . When perfected eventually in a commercial sense cellulose nitrate plastics were more consistent in appearance and quality than tusks, and duly replaced them too for uses such as piano keys and handles for table cutlery in products like these they were an economical and practical substitute but in stiff collars and cuffs— another important early application (eventually, millions were made) to help keep clerks, nannies, and others looking smart throughout the working... 

What drove the quest for a manmade material that could be shaped and molded into solid objects In large part it was ivory, the hard, creamy white material harvested from the tusks of elephants and carved into attractive objectives. As the United States emerged from its Civil War in 1865, people resumed their normal lives and many desired possessions such as ivory-handled knives, ivory trays, combs and hairbrushes, ivory-backed mirrors, umbrellas with ivory handles, carved ivory jewelry, pianos with ivory keys, and, for the upper middle class, billiard balls for use on their new, popular pool tables. All of this demand was placing a huge toll on the elephant populations in such places a Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Africa, and India. The best elephant tusks for making billiard balls came from the elephants of northern Ceylon, and at that, only about 2% of the tusks were of sufficient quality. At the time, no materials other than ivory were deemed suitable (Fenichell 1996). 

Before plastics were invented, ivory was used to make piano keys, billiard balls, buttons, dice, and many other small items. It was used as an insulator in the handles of metal containers such as teapots and coffee urns. It was, and still is, a popular material for making jewelry and objects d art. Sheets of ivory, which can be made by flattening sections of the outer part of large tusks, has been used as a base for paintings, in bookbinding, boxes, and as veneer or plaques in furniture. 

Depending on the natural shape of the ivory being used, it can be carved into various objects such as figures, pictures, netsuke and ecclesiastical items. It can be turned on a lathe to make items such as round boxes or billiard balls. Both carving and turning have often been used on the same item. 

As already mentioned, the billiard ball industry used vast amounts of elephant ivory. Only three, good-quality balls could be made from a single tusk. As they had to be perfectly round, the production of the balls was very specialised and involved months of drying the material before and during manufacture. More large quantities went on piano keys, and on cane or umbrella handles. This fondness for ivory lasted until the elephant hunting bans of the 1980s. 

The first man-made plastic was nitrocellulose, made in 1862 by nitrating the natural polymer, cellulose. Nitrocellulose, when mixed with a plasticizer such as camphor to make it more workable, was originally used as a replacement for ivory in billiard balls and piano keys and to make Celluloid collars. This material, from which the first movie film was made, is notoriously flammable. 

The polymer industry got its start in 1863 when Phelan and Col-lander, a firm of billiard ball manufacturers, offered 10 000 to anyone who could develop a workable substitute for the ivory then used in making the balls. Ivory was becoming scarce as herds of elephants were killed for their tusks. John and Isaiah Hyatt of New jersey deveioped the plastic celluloid in 1870 while trying to make billiard balls, and it became popular for making dental plates, movie film, dice, and stiff collars and cuffs for men s shirts. However, the Hyatt brothers never got the 10 000 prize because billiard balls made from highly flammable celluloid tended to explode. 

The first plastic—a polymer capable of being molded—was celluloid. Invented in 1856 by Alexander Parke, it was a mixture of nitrocellulose and camphor. Celluloid was used in the manufacture of billiard balls and piano keys, replacing scarce ivory. The invention of celluloid provided a reprieve for many elephants, but caused some moments of consternation in billiard parlors because nitrocellulose is flammable and explosive. Celluloid was used for motion picture film until it was replaced by cellulose acetate, a less dangerous polymer. 

At around the same time in the United States, a billiard ball company advertised a 10,000 reward for the discovery of an alternate material to ivory. John Wesley Hyatt developed collodion, a mixture of cellulose nitrate and alcohol. Like cellulose nitrate, collodion was highly flammable and would produce a small explosion upon agitation. Hyatt reported [W]e had a letter from a billiard saloon proprietor in Colorado mentioning this fact.. . saying he did not care so much about it, but that instantly every man in the room pulled a gun. To avoid melee, camphor, a derivative of the laurel tree, was added, and in 1870 Hyatt received a U.S. patent for celluloid. In 1871 Hyatt and his brother Isaiah formed the American Celluloid Company, which is today the Plastics Division of the Celanese Corporation. 

The plastics industry is recognized as having its beginnings in 1868 with the synthesis of cellulose nitrate. It all started with the shortage of ivory from which billiard balls were made. The manufacturer of these balls, seeking another production method, sponsored a competition. John Wesley Hyatt (in the U.S.) mixed pyroxin made from cotton (a natural polymer) and nitric acid with camphor. The result was cellulose nitrate, which he called celluloid. It is on record, however, that Alexander Parkes, seeking a better insulating material for the electrical industry, had in fact discovered that camphor was an efiflcient plasticizer for cellulose nitrate in 1862. Hyatt, whose independent discovery of celluloid came later, was the first to take out patents for this discovery. 

The American inventor John Wesley Hyatt (1837-1920), in an attempt to win a prize offered for an ivory substitute for billiard balls, began with pyroxylin. He dissolved it in a mixture of alcohol and ether, then added camphor to make it softer and more malleable. By 1869 he had formed what he called celluloid, and won the prize. Celluloid was the first synthetic plastic—2l material, that is, that can be molded into shape. 

While Celluloid was developed originally for use in place of ivory for making billiard balls and used later for dentures and shirt fronts, the annual volume never exceeded 500 tons during the nineteenth century. Much of this volume was used for photographic film, hairpins and combs. 

One of the chemical by-products of paper manufacture is synthetic vanilla. One paper mill could produce the world s annual demand in one day. The first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was developed to be a substitute for ivory in the manufacture of billiard balls. 

The quest for a moldable material of chemical origin began with the need to find a replacement for ivory in the production of billiard balls. Ivory was considered to be the best material for billiard balls but was becoming scarce and expensive. In 1865, the company Phelan and Collender offered a reward of 10,000 in gold for a suitable substitute material. 

Some 50 years later in 1868 the first synthetic plastic was produced by John W. Hyatt. He was a printer by trade and his driving motivation was to produce an ivory substitute for billiard balls. His hope was to win a large prize that had been offered. The poor guy didn t win the prize, but the thermoplastic material that he produced called cellulose nitrate was of much greater use than that which he sought. It has been used for many purposes such as windows in early automobiles, toys and novelties and film for motion pictures. It s problem was that it was highly flammable and as time went on it was gradually replaced by plastic materials that didn t burn as easily. 

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