The Grantville Gazette Volumn VI

by Eric Flint

  (C) In general, productivity data is not available in Grantville; the one exception is Hevea. The encyclopedia data is cited in the main text. "Enc" is Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. The remaining data was collected from various industry sources. "PH" is Polhamus; "Br" is Brown, "Ch" is Christy,"TW" is Treadwell, "Van" is Vanderbilt, "Bal" is Baldwin. W: wild production. C: cultivated. C1910: cultivated production circa 1910. C1940: cultivated production circa 1940. CM: cultivated production in modern times, shortly before ROF. "Tr" means tree, "Pl" means plant. In converting metric to English units, I used 2.5 acres per hectare and 2.2 pounds per kilogram. One kilogram per hectare equates to about 1.14 pounds per acre. Note that productivity is dependent on the location, the age of the tree, the frequency and method of tapping, and so forth.

  (D) Various rubber producing vines of the family Apocynaceae, especially (1) the genus Landolphia, and its species L. owariensis, L. heudelotii, L. kirkii and L. dawei, in tropical Africa, (2) the genera Clitandra and Carpodinus in West Africa, (3) the Forsteronia gracilis of British Guiana, (4) the Forsteronia floribunda of Jamaica, (5) the genera Willughbeia and Leuconitis of Borneo, (6) Parmeria glandulifera of Siam and Borneo, and (7) Urceola esculenta and Cryptostegia grandiflora of Burma (EB11). Note that EA states that Cryptostegia grandiflora is found in Africa.

  (E) When guayule is harvested, the plant is usually consumed. Therefore, the annual yield is the nominal yield—the yield in the year of harvest—divided by the harvesting age. Some sources appeared to be reporting the nominal yield, rather than the true annual yield. There has been some experimentation with clipping: harvesting only the part above ground, so the roots can regenerate a new crop. See PH232-3.

  References

  General Rubber References

  Cited encyclopedias, see Appendix 1

  Brown, Rubber: Its Sources, Cultivation and Preparation (1914)

  Schidrowitz and Dawson, History of the Rubber Industry (1952)

  Coates, The Commerce in Rubber: The First 250 Years (Oxford Univ. Press: 1987)

  Dean, Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History (1987)

  Maclaren, Rubber Tree Book (1913)

  Joshi, "Jungle Rubber"

  Mongabay, "A Brief History of Rubber (based on Wade Davis, One River 1996)

  Polhamus, Rubber: Botany, Production and Utilization (Interscience: 1962)

  Polhamus, "Rubber Content of Miscellaneous Plants," USDA/ARS Production Research Report No. 10 (Aug. 1957)(S21.Z2382 no. 10)(USDA 1957)

  (specific gravity)

  Hildebrand, "Our Most Versatile Vegetable Product," National Geographic (February 1940).

  Rubber Reclaiming

  Reschner, "Scrap Tire Recycling,"

  Para Rubber

  Listing of Hevea species and varieties

  International Rubber Research and Development Board (IRRDB), "South American Leaf Blight,"

  Villard, "Rubber-Cushioned Liberia," National Geographic (February 1948).

  Akers, Rubber Industry in Brazil and Orient

  Loadman, "Sir Henry Alexander Wickham,"

  Treadwell, Possibilities for Para Rubber Production in Northern Tropical America (1926)

  Guayule Rubber References

  Ford, "Desert Plant May Put Spring in Natural Rubber Production" (Jan. 2, 2002),

  Perry, Growing Rubber in California (1946)

  Hammond and Polhamus, Research on Guayule

  Vietmeyer, "Rediscovering America's Forgotten Crops," National Geographic (May 1981).

  See also Vanderbilt (under Goldenrod)

  Castilla Rubber References

  Cokeley, et al., "Fruit Dispersal of Castilla elastica in secondary forest and a developed area of the La Selva Biological Preserve, Costa Rica"

  http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/esi/2000/cr2000/Group_1/Research_Project/Castilla.htm

  Treadwell, supra.

  Pernambuco Rubber References

  IPGRI, "Hancornia speciosa Gomes," in "FRUITS FROM AMERICA: An ethnobotanical inventory"

  http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/ipgri/fruits_from_americas/frutales/Ficha%20Hancornia%20speciosa.htm

  Goldenrod Rubber References

  TrekEarth, "Edison's Lab"

  http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/North_America/United_States/photo52079.htm

  IEEE Virtual Museum, "High Hopes: Edison's Search for a Rubber Alternative,"

  http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/collection/event.php?taid=&id=3456957&lid=1

  National Park Service, "Goldenrod to Rubber,"

  http://www.nps.gov/edis/edisonia/virtual%20tour/chemlab/goldenrod.htm

  MSN Encarta, "Thomas Alva Edison,"

  Handel, "Thomas Edison Home and Laboratory" (1998)

  MSN Encarta, "Edison, Thomas Alva"

  see

  Vanderbilt, Thomas Edison, Chemist

  Baldwin, Edison, Inventing the Century

  Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention

  Milkweed Rubber References

  Whiting, "A Summary of the Literature on Milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) And Their Utilization," USDA Biblio. Bull. 2 (Oct. 15, 1943)(SB 618 M5 W5)

  Volaric, Lisa; Hagen, John P., "The Isolation of Rubber from Milkweed Leaves. An Introductory Organic Chemistry Lab," J. Chem. Educ. 2002 79 91

  Beckett, "Rubber Content and Habits of a Second Desert Milkweed (Asclepias Erosa) of Southern California and Arizona"

  Witt, M.D. and H.D. Knudsen. "Milkweed cultivation for floss production," in: J. Janick and J.E. Simon (eds.), New Crops 428-31 (Wiley, New York. 1993)

  Duke, James A.. "Asclepias syriaca," Handbook of Energy Crops (online, 1983)

  http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Asclepias_syriaca.html

  "Chemistry for Kids Summer Camp 2001"

  (Ohioan fifth to seventh graders in John Carroll University's "Chemistry for Kids" program studied latex from milkweed and dandelions.)

  "Project Science--Ooze Balls Kit"

  (Includes instructions for extracting latex from Australian dandelions, milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), Thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), and Rubber bush (Calotropis procera))

  Schuster, "Plant Study of Milkweed"

  DeMarce, Virginia, posting to "Dead Horse: Rubber," 1632 Tech Manual (Nov. 5, 2004)

  Boatright, Rick, posting to "Dead Horse: Rubber," 1632 Tech Manual

  DeGooyer

  http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~weeds/weedbiollibrary/u4milkw1.html

  http://www.ars.usda.gov/sites/monarch/sect2_5.html

  Dandelion Rubber

  Kolachov, "Kok-Saghyz, family 'Compositae,' as a Practical Source of Natural Rubber for the United States," National Farm Chemurgic Council Bulletin (1942).

  Whaley, "Russian Dandelion (Kok-Saghyz): An Emergency Source of Natural Rubber," USDA Misc. Pub. 618 (June 1947).

  Suomela, On the possibilities of growing Taraxacum kok-saghyz in Finland on basis of the investigations conducted in the years 1943-1948 (1950).

  IPNI entry for Taraxacum kok-saghyz, available through quotes Acta Instituti Botanici Academicae Scientiarum URSS 1: 137 (1933), "Hab. In montibus Tian-schan, in valle flum. Kegen, 19.X.1931, leg. L. Rodin." Remark 99288.

  Plants for a Future Database entry for Taraxacum kok-sahgyz, available through

  See also Vanderbilt (under Goldenrod)

  Miscellaneous References

  USDA Plant Profiles

  Schwarcz, That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles: 62 All-New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life (2002)

  "Signal Telegraph of the Civil War and the Wire Used,"

  Finnish Defense Forces, Quartermaster Depot,

  Boschert, Nancy, "Thermoplastic Vulcanizates in Medical Applications," Medical Plastics and Biomaterials (January 1997), online at

  Gabriel and Metz, Chap. 6, "Lethality and Casualties," A Short History of War,

  (RSR) "Rubber in Steam Railways,"

  Rubber consumption figures are from Schidrowitz 332-36, U.S. population from the World Almanac, British population fro
m , car ownership in the US from .

  Geopolitics of Rubber

  Braudel, Wheels of Commerce, Vol. 2 of Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (U. California Press: 1992).

  Perez-Brignoli, A Brief History of Central America (U. California Press: 1989)

  Smith, Explorers of the Amazon (U. Chicago Press: 1994)

  Hemming, The Search for El Dorado (Phoenix: 2001)

  Solana, "Dutch Trade with the Spanish West Indies and the Flemish Community in Cadiz in the Eighteenth Century: A Community of Shared Interests?"

  Ramerini, '"Dutch Portuguese Colonial History"

  and many satellite web pages.

  "Colonial Expansion: the V.O.C. ((Dutch) United East India Company) 1602-1798"

  "Routes of the Silk Road"

  Burns, Alan, History of the British West Indies (George Allen & Unwin: rev. 2d ed., 1965).

  "International Commerce and Colonial Spanish America,"

  Van der Kraan, "The Dutch in Siam: Jeremias van Vliet and the 1636 Incident at Ayutthaya,"

  and "At the Court of King Prasat-Thong: An Early seventeenth Century Account by Jeremias Van Vliet,"

  Polenghi, "The Japanese in Ayudhya in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century,"

  Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "The Beginning of Relations with European Nations and Japan,"

  "Dutch Portuguese Colonial History,"

  Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (19 )

  Naipaul, The Loss of El Dorado (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.: 1969)

  Bannon, Bolton and the Spanish Borderlands (Univ. Olahoma Press: 1964)

  Appendix 1: Grantville Resources

  Public and School Library Holdings

  "Composites," "Plant," "Rubber," "Dandelion," "Guayule," "Castilla Rubber Tree," "Rubber Plant," Encyclopedia Americana [in Public Library, per search of Mannington Public Library catalog]

  "Industries, Chemical Process—Rubber" and "Angiosperms," Encyclopedia Britannica [in Public Library]

  "Rubber," "Amazon," "Ceara," "Fortaleza," "Para," "Para (Belem)," Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), online at

  [two copies in Grantville, one donated post-RoF to Public Library, per email from Virginia DeMarce]

  "India Rubber," Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed. (1875-1889) [in Round Barn]

  "Rubber," Collier's Encyclopedia [in Junior High School library, per Rick Boatright]

  "Rubber," World Book Encyclopedia [in Senior High School library, per Rick Boatright]

  Probable Personal Library Holdings

  Hammond Citation Atlas (and other atlases)

  "Rubber," Microsoft Encarta CD [per Rick Boatright]

  National Geographic magazines, back to the 1950s at least. [ditto]

  Personal Knowledge

  While there are no botanists in Grantville, the Up-timer Grid version 6r reports that Susan Lisa Beattie was a horticulture major in college. We don't know where she went to school, but the West Virginia University horticulture program requires 45 hours of agriculture courses. Since she only attended for three years, I would expect that she has taken perhaps two-thirds of that course requirement.

  Alden Williams, Sr., Gene Caldwell, Linda Jane Colburn, Fran Genucci, Delia Higgins, Rose Harris (d. 1635), Dora Mobley, Jessica Booth, Deann Whitney, and Vera Hudson are either already master gardeners, or are in the apprenticeship program for that honor. West Virginia Master Gardeners "receive a minimum of 30 hours of instruction. Along with an orientation, volunteers are given core training in plant science, plant propagation, soil science, plant pathology, entomology, communication skills, and integrated pest management." See

  And then there are the members of the Garden Club, and, of course, farmers.

  While their knowledge is not going to help you find rubber trees or tap them, these people do know how to test soils, plant seeds, use twentieth-century garden and farm equipment, control plant pests, and so forth.

  Down-Time Knowledge

  The up-time texts are not our only source of information as to where these rubber trees may be found. Down-time scholars may well be aware of texts such as Pietro Martire d'Anghiera's De Orbo Novo Petri Martyris Anglerii Decades Octo (1530; translated into English in 1612) which says that trees whose "milky juice . . . congeals to form a sort of pitch-like resin" can be found in the "Valley of Chiribichi."

  On the Design,

  Construction and Maintenance

  of Wooden Aircraft

  by Jerry Hollombe,

  Private Pilot (ASEL),

  Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic

  Introduction

  This essay started out to be about what it takes to build an airplane using wood, wire, dope and fabric. It's still about that, but it's also about why there shouldn't be a down-time aerospace industry, nor much of an air force, in the first decade or so post Ring of Fire. I say "shouldn't" because what actually happens is up to the fiction authors and, in my experience, when works of fiction are created, plot and drama trump the details of reality every time. Still, if you're going to break the rules, you should at least know what they are.

  I earned my private pilot's license in 1966. At the time, it required a minimum of forty hours flight time. I qualified for my Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) mechanic's license in 1970—one of the very last groups of students to be formally trained in maintaining wooden aircraft. To earn my A&P license I went to school eight hours a day, five days a week, for fourteen months, then passed long and rigorous written and practical exams. Nearly all of what I learned in that time is orthogonal to what a pilot learns. The idea that J. Random Pilot from the twenty-first century would know anything about building and maintaining wooden aircraft is laughable. There were no A&P mechanics in the Ring of Fire—let alone any of my era—so most of what I'm going to talk about below is unknown in Grantville.

  Further, as a mechanic I know how to maintain and repair aircraft using mostly off-the-shelf parts and materials. I don't know how to design one. For that you need an aerospace engineer and there is only one in the Ring of Fire, Hal Smith. (Mike Spehar managed to grandfather him in before the Grid became so rigid.) I don't know how to make the precursor chemicals for dope. For that you need a chemist. I don't know how to make the high quality steel to make the wires, nuts, bolts, etc., you need to hold an aircraft together. For that you need a metallurgist. Except in the most general terms, I don't even know how to make a propeller, let alone design one. Trial and error will have to serve.

  The following description of the building and maintenance of fabric-covered, wood-framed aircraft is going to include a lot of fiddly details and requirements. Some of them are going to be difficult to implement in the seventeenth century. Whether they are implemented or not is up to the fiction authors, but they should be aware of this: A lot of airplanes crashed and a lot of people died to put those details and standards in place. None of them are entirely frivolous. If you want your airplanes to be credibly able to fly from Peetle to Pootle without crashing six times along the way and want your pilots and passengers to be anything but suicidal daredevils, you'll leave them in place. Also note that even modern private aircraft are inspected annually, commercial aircraft are also inspected every 100 hours of flight and military aircraft are inspected daily, so problems can be detected and repaired early. Finally, when feasible, every pilot does a walk-around inspection of his aircraft before taking it up.

  It's been suggested to me that outside of Jesse Wood's air force, down-time pilots will be daredevils. Even if you aren't concerned about their safety, consider the safety of your precious engines, instruments and even rubber tires. You can't afford to build airplanes that crash and burn at every pause in the conversation.

  So, let's begin.

  Tools

  First is a list of the minimum woodworking tools required to maintain a wood framed aircraft. Most of them should be available or makeable in the seventeenth century. Space limits prevent me from describing each one and its use. Mechanics learn about them in the pra
ctical shop part of their training.

  Backsaw (14 to 18 teeth per inch)

  Small bucking bar

  Auger bits

  Brace

  C-clamps

  Parallel wood clamps (Jorgenson)

  Scribe compass (10 inch, thumbscrew lock)

  Hand drill

  Twist drills (1/16 to 1/4 inch)

  Flashlight

  Hammer

  Magnetic tack hammer

  Pocket knife

  Block plane

  Jack plane

  Diagonal cutting pliers

  Coarse wood rasp (half round)

  Fine wood rasp (half round)

  Dovetail saw

  Crosscut hand saw (10 to 14 teeth per inch)

  Keyhole saw

  Rip saw (5 to 6 teeth per inch)

  Screwdrivers

  Combination square

  Straightedge (36 to 48 inches)

  The wooden frame is covered with fabric and the tools for working with that are the same as those used by a tailor or upholsterer. They include assorted needles, scissors, pinking shears, sewing machines and irons. The fabric, in turn, is covered with dope, which I'll talk more about under the materials heading. Dope is applied like paint, with brushes or, if available, a paint sprayer.

  Even wooden airplanes have metal parts and fittings and for them you need the usual wrenches and screwdrivers and drills (oh my!). To fabricate the parts from raw stock, you'll need the resources of a machine shop or a blacksmith.

  In addition to these mostly generic tools, there are specialty tools needed for doing things that only airplanes need done, like tensioning the wires and cables that hold the wings up (and down). I'll mention them as they come up in context.