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Artificial Billiard Balls

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Artificial Billiard Balls www.mrs.org/publications/bulletin HISTORICAL NOTE Artificial Billiard Balls In his 1859 book The Game of Billiards, and to printers like Hyatt for burn pre- lished the Albany Billiard Ball Company, Michael Phelan, co-owner of the Phelan vention; it also served as a coating for and also the Albany Dental Plate & Collender Company, the largest manu- photographic plates. Company—although this effort was occa- facturer of billiard balls in the United One day in 1868, Hyatt found that a sionally plagued by reports of exploding States, lamented the state of his raw bottle of collodion in his cabinet had dentures by cigar smokers and com- material supply. The ivory obtained from spilled, and that a hard, thick, transpar- plaints about the taste of camphor that the tusks of the elephants of Ceylon, he ent material had formed. He thought col- the dentures retained. The Hyatts later said, was superior to that of the African lodion might make an excellent coating combined both companies to form the elephant for his purposes, being more for his billiard balls. In his excitement, he Celluloid Manufacturing Company. They solid and less friable. However, the cost convinced his brother Isaiah Smith Hyatt, never submitted their billiard balls to the of this ivory was “dreadfully dear.” until then a newspaper editor, to join him Phelan & Collender Company for consid- Adding to the problem was the fact that in his experimentation. eration for the $10,000 prize, however, only 1 in 50 tusks was of sufficient quali- and it is probable that the money was ty to make a billiard ball, due to the “[Phelan] offered a prize of never awarded. defects—pores and cracks—inherent in The Hyatts sold their billiard balls natural materials. Phelan speculated that $10,000 to anyone who could through agents such as the Brunswick “if any inventive genius would discover make artificial billiard balls.” Billiards Company, a maker of fine bil- a substitute for ivory, possessing those liards tables, and achieved some success qualities which make it valuable to the After months of coating numerous vari- in that area. But celluloid soon proved to billiard player, he would make a hand- ations of their composite billiard balls have other, higher-volume, uses. An engi- some fortune for himself, and earn our with collodion without success, they neer named Charles Burroughs invented sincerest gratitude.” began experimenting with the primary various machines to produce celluloid in Several years later, the decimation of raw material of collodion itself—cellulose standard bar sizes; he also developed a elephant herds had created such a short- nitrate. Alexander Parkes and Daniel Spill planer to slice it into thin sheets, which age of ivory that Phelan decided to sup- of England had patented a material com- eventually led to the production of film ply the small fortune himself. In adver- posed of cellulose nitrate, vegetable oil, for the motion picture industry. From tisements placed in newspapers across and solvents called “Parkesine” in 1865. 1870 on, celluloid was used mostly for the United States, he offered a prize of Parkesine was a white, plastic dough that women’s corset clasps and hair combs, $10,000 to anyone who could make artifi- could be pressed into molds, extruded and as collars and cuffs for men’s shirts. cial billiard balls. into shapes, and carved by hand when Middle-class men who could not afford to John Wesley Hyatt, a young printer in hardened. The gentlemen’s efforts to mar- change shirts often changed the collars or Albany, N.Y., began experimenting with ket this material failed, probably due to a cuffs to maintain appearances. Celluloid the material he was most familiar with— lack of business acumen. offered them what one manufacturer the natural polymer cellulose, a carbohy- Soon the Hyatt brothers, no doubt advertised as “waterproof linen” that drate obtained from the cell walls of aware of the work done by Parkes and could be wiped clean with a wet sponge. plants and a common ingredient in paper Spill, were making billiard balls from The addition of dyes and other process and textiles. He was soon fashioning their own version of this hardened cellu- changes allowed manufacturers to mimic composite balls made of wood pulp, lose nitrate dough coated with collodion. tortoiseshell or mother of pearl for cloth, and paper bound together by adhe- However, real world testing of the prod- women who did not have the means to sives such as shellac and various resins, uct revealed one major flaw. Due to its afford the genuine material. compressed into a sphere under high close chemical similarity to guncotton, “a John Wesley Hyatt soon ventured into temperature and pressure. He patented lighted cigar applied would at once result other areas, establishing the Hyatt Pure such a ball in 1865, but it did not have the in a serious flame and occasionally the Water Company in 1881 and the Hyatt same hardness and “feel” as the ivory violent contact of the balls would pro- Roller Bearing Company in 1891. He died balls that billiards players were accus- duce a mild explosion like a percussion in 1920 in New Jersey. In 1927, the tomed to, so it was unsuccessful. guncap,” Hyatt wrote. “We had a letter Celanese Corporation acquired the Fortunately, the occurrence of one of from a billiard saloon proprietor in Celluloid Manufacturing Company, those serendipitous spills that happen Colorado, mentioning this fact and say- where it became a part of their plastics frequently in the history of science led to ing that he did not care so much about it division. Since the 1950s, most billiard a breakthrough for Hyatt. As a printer, he but that instantly every man in the room balls have been made of phenolic resin. naturally had a supply of collodion, pulled a gun.” TIM PALUCKA which printers used to coat their finger- More experimentation revealed that tips to prevent burns from hot lead type. what Parkes had considered a minor FOR FURTHER READING: Susan Mossman, Collodion was a compound of ether, additive—camphor oil obtained from the alcohol, and cellulose nitrate, invented by laurel tree on the island of Formosa—was Ed., Early Plastics: Perspectives, 1850–1950 Louis Menard of the Collège de France in actually a key solvent in producing a (Leicester University Press, London, 1997); 1846, which produced a clear liquid that more workable, stable material. The new Stephen Fenichell, Plastic, The Making of a hardened into a tough transparent film. camphor-stabilized compound was Synthetic Century (HarperBusiness, New Menard had been trying—unsuccessful- named “celluloid,” for “cellulose-like,” York, 1996); Polymer Pioneers (Center for ly—to synthesize the explosive cellulose by Isaiah Hyatt. Because it could be History of Chemistry, Philadelphia, trinitrate, or “guncotton.” The side prod- remelted and used over again, celluloid 1986); and Stephen L. Sass, The Substance uct, collodion, proved to be useful to doc- was the first thermoplastic material of Civilization (Arcade Publishing, New tors as a compound to close minor cuts invented. In the 1870s, the brothers estab- York, 1998). 614 MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 30 • AUGUST 2005 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 152.168.58.228, on 02 Nov 2018 at 12:57:59, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2005.186.
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