Perflex Pouch Material
By Dave Saul
Richard Vance's credentials suggest that he might be a person who could tell us why Perflex -- that infamous pouch panacea of the '70s turned plague of the '80s -- disintegrated spontaneously after a few years. I've heard various theories, including the popular notion that the heat deformation to form the pouches initiates the self-destructive process, and also that mechanical stresses resulting from valve operation are to blame.
These may contribute to the problem, but there's more to it. I had some Perflex sheeting in bulk form that fell apart after being stored in a friendly environment for several years. I also had a set of pre-formed Perflex pouches from Player Piano Co. that disintegrated spontaneously in the container. Those were presumably pre-formed by heat, but were never put into service.
An intriguing question is whether a material with similar properties might eventually be re-compounded to extend its life expectancy to something on the order of several decades or more? My knowledge of chemistry is somewhere between scanty and nil, but it seems to me that if the failure mechanism were known, there might be some way to circumvent it. Even if that could be successfully done, of course, gaining the confidence of the restoration community might somewhat difficult at this point in time.
Dave Saul
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(Message sent Mon 3 Feb 1997, 20:21:37 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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