PLASTICS ENTER THE HOME FURNISHINGS FIELD
For years plastics have been of major importance in the industrial field. Now the chemist's test tubes are revealing new and outstanding uses for plastics in architecture, lighting, decorator's accessories, furniture novelties, and miscellaneous items. The records show that 160,000,000 pounds of plastics are produced in a single year in the United States alone, and that new plastics are being developed at the rate of one a year.
This evolution of plastics has made possible large-scale production of articles within a price range that makes them available to large numbers of homes. A recent issue of the British Yearbook devotes 55 pages to the mere listing of products made of plastic and 30 pages to substances from which plastics are derived. The fifth annual modern plastics competition brought more than 1,000 entries. Top award in the furniture classification went to a display of occasional tables with revolving tops, made without using screws, bolts, and other attachments ordinarily used in furniture construction. At the January and June (1941) Furniture Mart shows in Chicago, Ill., plastics definitely entered the competitive fields for interior decoration, surfacing, hardware, and paneling. There were "all-plastic rooms" featuring dinette sets, bedroom suites, dressing tables, vanity chairs, bar stools, consoles, bedside tables, and sophisticated modern stow-away chests. Chrome and wood were combined into a high chair with a back formed of pink and blue opaque woven plastic. There were bedroom groupings in soft, light grays matched by the woodwork of the room. Plain panel backs of beds were in cedar to match the carpet. Wall paper was plaided in ivory and two-tone gray. There were bedrooms in French Provincial style; others in simple Colonial, or Georgian. Dining room groupings were shown in sparkling furniture that was not glass but was warp-resisting and impervious to mars, nicks, chipping, and such abuse as would require refinishing in the case of wood or metal pieces. The talent of ingenious designers and decorators had been used to aid in producing home accessories in plastics. There were on display table lamps, curtain rods, picture frames, salad bowls and utensils, vases, wastepaper baskets, bird cages, carved ornamental centerpieces, mirror frames, and coat trees. Plastics were shown in fluorescent lighting effects possessing the advantages of day-like light, less heat, less power consumption, and greater illumination per unit of power consumption. There seemed to be no major product in the home furnishings field, including lighting and accessories, for which this "plastics age" had not prepared an entry.
Photograph by Grignon.
Figure 50.—Exhibit 249, June (1941) American Furniture Mart, Chicago, Ill., showing reproduction of wood grain so applied as to take the form of a veneer as an integral part of the surface processed. The chair shows zebrawood graining.
As talking points for plastics in the home furnishings field, consider the following claims:
1. The plastic used for furniture is neither a finish nor a protection for a finish. It is a hard-surfacing substance said to be "many times as strong as wood."
2. Tests show that it is not affected by hot dishes up to 200° F. Liquids of all types and unusual temperatures harm plastics not in the least. These include perfumes, ordinary acids, alcohol, nail polish, and fruit stains.
3. Plastic surfacing will not discolor or fade, even though exposed for a long period to the sun's rays.
4. Plastic pieces need neither polish nor wax. They are washed with ordinary soap and water.
Salespersons should understand a few basic technical facts in order to discuss plastic pieces or sets or "all-plastic" rooms with interested customers.
The term "plastics" is a commercial, rather than a scientific, designation; the line is drawn not so much by what the substance is, as by what it will do. The materials called "plastics" have in common not only the ability to be formed while soft into a desired shape possessing rigidity, but also the chemical characteristics of having been polymerized; that is, they are constituted of large molecules which are aggregates of similar molecules.
Plastics are classified into two types depending on their physical properties:
1. Thermoplastic.
2. Thermosetting.
Thermoplastic materials soften upon being heated and become solid again when cooled. This change of state can be repeated over and over. Thermosetting plastics on the other hand are compounds which definitely alter their chemical constitution in the course of molding under heat or pressure or both.
Plastics also may be classified according to their chemical source. The 18 or so known basic types fall into 4 general fields: Cellulose plastics, protein plastics, natural resin plastics, and synthetic resin plastics.
CELLULOSE PLASTICS
Cellulose nitrate, the classic in this type, begins life as cotton linters—the short fibers next to the seed in a cotton boll. Purified, the cellulose is treated with mixed nitric and sulfuric acids to produce pyroxylin. Camphor, alcohol, and color are added as desired. The mixture becomes a dough-like substance which is rolled, baked, seasoned, and polished. When heated, it may be shaped to any form desired; and it can be cut, sawed, filed, blown, rolled, planed, hammered, drilled, and turned on lathes. It may be obtained in practically every shade and hue, in transparent, translucent, opaque, and in mottled and pearl effects.
PROTEIN PLASTICS
Protein plastics date back to 1890 when Dr. Adolph Spitteler of Hamburg, Germany, set out to make a white "blackboard" for classroom use. He mixed sour milk with formaldehyde and got a casein plastic, a shiny substance from which many a modern button and buckle is made. It is possible to use soya beans, lignin from wood, coffee beans, and peanuts in making protein-type plastics.
NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC RESINS
An example of a natural resin is lac secreted by a little red insect that sucks the sap of trees and converts it into a protective covering for itself. Lac, upon being refined and dissolved in a suitable solvent, forms a shellac. Dr. Leo Baekeland in 1907 was investigating this natural process when he combined formaldehyde and phenol with the aid of a catalyst and heat. The result was a synthetic resin, the basis of the first molded phenolic plastic—the familiar substance of telephone receivers and many other objects. The commercial development of urea-formaldehyde plastics was made possible by availability not only of formaldehyde but also of synthetic urea.
Comparatively new in the field of structural materials, but significant for those who sell home furnishings, are laminated plastics, plywood, and veneers. Laminated plastics are made by treating sheets of paper or woven cloth with synthetic heat-reactive resins and subjecting built-up layers of the treated materials to heat and pressure. Such plastics also may be bonded to thin wood sheets and to metals. The resulting materials are useful for furniture and for interior decoration.
This type of material was used in decorating the Library of Congress Annex. It was extensively used on the British superliner, Queen Mary. From vinyl resins, one of the new families, comes the center of the sandwich in safety glass. The plastic interlayer is not broken by a blow but stretches, at the same time holding broken pieces of glass together and preventing flying splinters.
At the present time the varied diversity of plastics is a major asset. In the home furnishings field, whoever wants a new, strong, graceful, functional material for a new product has a wide range of materials in all color combinations from which to make a choice. For the first time, the claim may be advanced that certain limitations in furniture design have been released and that innumerable variations without changing the shape or structure of the product are possible. By the use of fascinating surfaces, textures, and colors, it is possible to create designs which, while simple, possess charm, intrinsic beauty, and distinction. The introduction of such a product to the home furnishings field brings a new competitive element.