Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/771

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��As Flexible as India Rubber but Infinitely Stronger

A WONDERFUL pipe-metal is now in use which seems to be able to stand any amount of rough usage. Our illustra- tion depicts instances of torture to which it has been subjected without destruction. The section that looks like a piece of crumpled rag was in an Oklahoma oil well when it was "shot" with one hundred and seventy quarts of nitro-glycerin. It shrank from eighteen feet to sLx feet in the process, but declined to break.

The twisted piece is a section of eight-inch pipe, weighing about twen- ty-eight pounds to the foot, and having walls five-six- teenths inch thick. As a pipe it is not of much further use, but as a proof of metallic strength it is a masterpiece. The figure- eight knot is tied in a pipa having a ten- sile strength of fifty-eight thousand pounds per square inch.

These are only typical instances of what this uncanny metal will withstand. A twenty-six-length pipe, five hundred feet long, was blown bodily out of a Texas gas well. It lay across the landscape, twisted and turned like a gigantic frozen snake, but all its welds and joints, and the metal itself held on like grim death. The joints held, the welds held, and the metal itself was intact. There was not a break or flaw anywhere throughout its great length. As will be seen from our illus- tration, it is twisted and contorted like a garden hose, and when one considers that it is welded metal it is indeed wonderful.

��Lengtben Your Cast with Mercury Fishing Line

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��This piece of pipe was originally eighteen feet long. Nitro-glycerin crumpled it up

���This pipe has a tensile strength of 58,000 pounds to the square inch

���713,000 inch pounds twist- ed this without fracture

��ANOVf]L improvement in fishing lines is one which is made half of mercury. The process by which it is prej)ared is one which makes the fibers of the line absorb a mercury compound. This compound is many times heavier than the fiber of the line itself, so that the finished fishing line will be consid- erably heavier, though of even I-33 diameter, than the or- dinary.

A plain fiber fishing line of relatively small diameter is immersed in a bath containing a mercury compound. The mercury is then made to precipitate out of the solution and in through the crevices between the fibers. The fishing line is next tak- en and dressed with a mercury ointment. When this dries, the thin fishing line will be coated with a smooth, glossy surface. Then when the line is cast the friction between it and the rings of the fishing rod, as the line plays out, is much less than with other lines.

Moreover, the smaller diameter of the line makes the resistance of the air upon it less than in other cases. The drag of flowing water will also be reduced. There- fore not only will the cast of a line be greatly lengthened with this line, but, in addition to this, the line will "stay put." Now, all you disciples of Ike Walton, here is a new departure. Try it out on your next expedition after the fickle trout or black bass. We stake an editorial blue pencil, though, that you're scared to try it out on a "musky."

���Lying like a gigantic frozen snake across the landscape, this piece of pipe has all -^. and welds unbroken after being blown bodily from a gas well in the southern oil fields

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