Here endith the lession........

Informative, Interesting, and to the point.

Bravo.

John C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Don Hyde [mailto:DonH@AXONN.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 9:52 AM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [OT]: What's "mica" ?


Mica is a naturally occurring, and fairly common mineral.  It is clear
and
shiny and cleaves easily into thin sheets.  It has a long history of use
as
an insulator in the electronics industry.  Since it is cheap, stable,
not
known to be toxic, and shiny, it is also frequently used as an
ingredient in
shiny "metal flake" paints, which could probably more properly be known
as
"mica flake".

It has been used as an insulator in capacitors, and as the insulating
supports in vacuum tubes.  Check your local museum or rock musician's
supply
of vacuum tubes and look inside.  You will see flat, slightly
cloudy-looking
transparent sheets supporting the various metallic parts inside.  That
is
mica.

The best supplies are in South America (and possibly Africa as well).
At
the beginning of WWII, it was worried that U-boats might cut off these
supplies, so a research effort was mounted to find a synthetic
substitute.
The result was named Formica, since it was a substitute "for mica".

The U-boats were less successful than Hitler hoped, the natural
substance
had somewhat better properties, and besides, that's what everyone was
used
to working with, so the new material was not needed for vacuum tubes.

When the Queen Mary was pressed into service to carry troops across the
Atlantic (my father was one of those), her owners asked that the fine
wood
paneling be removed for safekeeping, and some sort of substitute be
installed in its place.  The engineers who had created Formica, and the
company they worked for, saw an opportunity, and demonstrated their
ability
to print a wood grain onto their new manmade material.

Tens of thousands of US soldiers saw those synthetically-panelled walls,
and
saw them survive tens of thousands of soldiers.  So when the war was
over
and they were offered the same material for their new kitchen counters,
they
bought it in huge quantities.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jinx [mailto:joecolquitt@CLEAR.NET.NZ]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 1:23 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: [OT]: What's "mica" ?
>
>
> I'm looking at various protective finishes for boxes and need
> to know if the "mica" I've seen on some US sites is the same
> as what I know as Formica or melamine
>
> ta
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
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>
>

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