Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: A Brief History of Celluloid Plastics

This is topic A Brief History of Celluloid Plastics in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 07-07-2005, 01:59 AM:

As a Manufacturing Engineering Technology Major at Arizona State University-Polytechnic and a student member of The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), I do get to participate in tours of SME members shops.

One recent tour was to Tech Mold,Inc. in Tempe, AZ, which is a reknown plastic injection moldmaking firm.

Tech Mold,Inc. has published a book titled "What is a Mold" which was "initiated by the Training Committee at Tech Mold, Inc., to familiarize new employees with terms used in the injection moldmaking trade."

A small excerpt describes the history of Celluloid:

"The first synthetic plastic was invented in 1869 by an Albany, New York printer named John Hyatt. He was searching for a substitute for ivory to make billiard balls. By combining camphor with cellulose nitrate, he came up with a plastic we now know as celluloid. It could be sawed, carved, and made into sheets. As a result, many items that were originally made of ivory were able to be made of the much less expensive celluloid. This made these items available to the average citizen. Celluloid products included combs, dentures, clock cases, photographic film, and of course billiard balls."

"Although celluloid was a major technological breakthrough, it did have some flaws. It was highly flammable and could not easily be molded. Today, only Ping Pong balls come to mind as a popular item made of cellulose."

I may add that a great demonstration of flammable Ping Pong balls can be seen in the classic film "Stalag 17" starring William Holden.

Cheers

K.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-07-2005, 02:19 AM:

So back in the nineteenth century, if you thought that abseiling, bungie jumping, fire eating, duels and bullfighting were boring sports that were only played by wusses, you took up snooker instead! [Big Grin]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-07-2005, 04:12 AM:

..yea, I've heard some of the stories of cueballs "exploding" on impact with one another, or even thrown against a hard surface due to the nitrate compound in the material structure.

Made pretty big holes when they did explode.

Posted by Brant Veilleux (Member # 2877) on 07-10-2005, 03:19 PM:

Oddly enough, I just checked out the episode Countdown in the James Burke Connections series from the public library. It deals with this very subject among other inventions which led to the development of motion picture, such as limelight and the Carbon arc light. All of the episodes are quite good, and this particular installment is highly recommended because of the subject matter.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-10-2005, 06:04 PM:

James Burke "Connection" series was one of the greatest info/study series that PBS came out - right next to "Cosmos"

I remembert that episode "Countdown" - pertaining to nitrate to the connection to the motion picture. I do believe that this episode came out in the early 80's of sorts.

Posted by Andy Summers (Member # 3207) on 07-13-2005, 06:17 AM:

Hallo there all

Will

That was very Interesting history lesion, 1869 “John Hyatt” billiard balls.

I learned about flammable film stock when I was a trainee projectionist around 16 years ago, though a demonstration is always needed and as I have never seen “Great Balls of Fire” I have to say I think I get the picture.

God knows when gets stuck in the “film gate” back in the days when it was unstable, though I have never come across any tragic events on the internet, that is the history of the motion picture.