Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-12-02 16:40
Perseplex is a trade name for acrylic plastic, same formulation as Plexiglas. I believe that Perseplex is a UK trade name, but I don't have the source book here.
Borden got into plastics from the milk end of things, with plastics based upon casein, which in turn is a protein extracted from milk. (Long chain proteins are the original "plastic" building blocks, although these days we have largely moved on from naturally occurring proteins to carbon-hydrogen molecules produced from crude oil.) Transparent forms of these plastics were once used for clear window like structures, but they were mostly replaced by acrylics.
Gail Borden, the company's founder, was a major "mover and shaker" here in the Houston area back in the 1800's (which usually means that he was some sort of sharpster or crook, at least by the standards of the rest of the world). He started out as a surveyor during the early days of the Republic of Texas, moved on to land speculation, and later got into milk canning and preservation. The canned milk racket was where he really made his nut, and plastics were only a sideline.
The plastics side of the business was active for the most part in the early 1900's. I don't know how active they are these days, though.
Bakelite is some strong and nasty stuff. (So is the phenol that is a major "building block" in the process used to make it.) Very useful for things like electrical insulation, it has largely been displaced from consumer items over the last twenty years time. The fact that it is also "butt ugly" in most forms doesn't help its reputation, either.
All three types mentioned above (acrylics, casein based plastics, and phenol based plastics) have a distinctive odor when smoldered or burned. Acrylics smell "sharp" with a slight hint of chlorine, casein based plastics smell like milk, and Bakelite smells like...well...phenol.
Most likely, the Chinese clarinets alluded to in an earlier posting would be made of either acrylic (cheap, easy to mold, strong enough to hold up) or ABS or polypropylene. All are stable enough, the last two are more suitable, and all will melt if you apply enough heat. If the horn is made of Bakelite, it will char and burn, but it will not (as in never, ever, EVER) melt.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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