map of the United Kingdom Destination London:
    Hancock's Pickle
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    Click for larger picture!
    Workers operating a rubber masticating
    machine.
    We're taking a short trip to London, because that's where Thomas Hancock is living in 1820. In this year Hancock does something to make the rubber business more efficient.

    This machine is called the masticator, but most people call it a "pickle". "Masticate" is a fancy word that means "to chew", and that's just what this pickle does. The pickle is a giant grinding machine that takes the scraps leftover from raincoat making and grinds and mashes them into big blocks of rubber that can be used rather than thrown away. This will in time make it much cheaper for people like Charles Macintosh to make raincoats from rubber.

    Click for larger picture! Click for larger picture!
    Diagram showing the inside
    of the pickle.
    Thomas Hancock
    The pickle is the beginning of rubber recycling. But recycling rubber would become more difficult in the future, thanks to something called crosslinking.

      Next stop: Massachusetts - Goodyear's Accident

    Image credit

      All images from Thomas Hancock, Personal Narrative of the Origin and Progress of the Caoutchouc or India-Rubber Manufacture in England. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857.

    Work done by: Polymer Science Learning Center
    and the Chemical Heritage Foundation