Recent Books: Plastics Application—Two New Books Issued

Epoxy Resins, by Irving Skeist and George R. Somerville. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York (Chapman & Hall Ltd., London), 1958. Pp. 293, illus. 44s. This textbook outlines the properties, fabrication and uses of epoxy resins without going deeply into their chemistry and therefore will be most useful to design engineers, manufacturers requiring sound information on potential raw materials, students and supervisory workers in the plastics industry. The epoxies are a comparatively new group of compounds, so that information about them is all the more needed. They have interesting and valuable properties as materials for coatings, adhesives, potting of electrical components, tooling, low‐pressure moulding and as stabiliser‐plasticisers for vinyl resins. They are making the greatest advances in applications where resistance to acids, alkalis or organic chemicals is required —in washing machines, acid electro‐plating tanks, drum linings and laboratory furniture—the corrosion‐resistant properties stemming from the fact that stable ether linkages are the only bonding other than carbon to carbon.