Gutta-percha is a tough plastic-like substance resembling caoutchouc in many of its properties, but stronger, more soluble, and less elastic. It is the inspissated milky juice of Isonandra Gutta and other kindred trees of the natural order Sapotaceae. It chiefly comes from Malacca, Borneo, and other islands of the MalayArchipelago. When pure, gutta-percha is of a brownish-red colour. Below the temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit it is as hard as wood and excessively tough. By an increase of heat it becomes more flexible, until at a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit it becomes pasty, and between this and 140 degrees or 150 degrees it may be moulded into all varieties of forms with the greatest ease, retaining precisely the same form as it cools and hardens to its previous state of rigidity. It is insoluble in water, soluble with difficulty in ether and other caoutchouc solvents, but very readily in oil of turpentine and naphtha. It is not attacked by solutions of alkalies nor by hydrofluoric acid, but it is acted on by sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids.
Gutta-percha has formerly been applied to a variety of purposes since before the 20th century and the invention of artificial plastics, for example as a substitute for leather, especially in the soles of shoes, etc, as an insulating coating for the copperwires of submarine telegraph cables, as an ingredient in mastics and cements, for the manufacture of flexible hose-tubes, bottles, etc. Research Gutta-percha
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Research Gutta-percha
