Rubber 1929 Eastman Teaching Films (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

Silent, with subtitles. Where rubber comes from, how it's cultivated and processed, and tire and shoe manufacturing.

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Natural rubber, also called by other names of India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, caucho or caoutchouc, as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds, plus water. Thailand and Indonesia are two of the leading rubber producers. Forms of polyisoprene that are used as natural rubbers are classified as elastomers.

Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the rubber tree or others. The latex is a sticky, milky colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called "tapping". The latex then is refined into rubber that is ready for commercial processing. In major areas, latex is allowed to coagulate in the collection cup. The coagulated lumps are collected and processed into dry forms for marketing.

Natural rubber is used extensively in many applications and products, either alone or in combination with other materials. In most of its useful forms, it has a large stretch ratio and high resilience, and is extremely waterproof...

Rubber latex is extracted from rubber trees. The economic life period of rubber trees in plantations is around 32 years — up to 7 years of immature phase and about 25 years of productive phase.

The soil requirement is well-drained, weathered soil consisting of laterite, lateritic types, sedimentary types, nonlateritic red or alluvial soils.

The climatic conditions for optimum growth of rubber trees are:

- Rainfall of around 250 centimetres (98 in) evenly distributed without any marked dry season and with at least 100 rainy days per year

- Temperature range of about 20 to 34 °C (68 to 93 °F), with a monthly mean of 25 to 28 °C (77 to 82 °F)

- Atmospheric humidity of around 80%

- About 2000 hours sunshine per year at the rate of six hours per day throughout the year

- Absence of strong winds

Many high-yielding clones have been developed for commercial planting. These clones yield more than 2,000 kilograms per hectare (1,800 lb/acre) of dry rubber per year, under ideal conditions...