[X219A], Letter from Thomas Alva Edison to David Kelsey Hickman, December 1888
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Title
[X219A], Letter from Thomas Alva Edison to David Kelsey Hickman, December 1888
Editor's Notes
I found a new rinkle. If the fibre on rather by splints of bamobbo so we put in a steam chest, They get the dark red color in couple of days & can be powdered up by the finger which shows they are just in that porous state we want, but in the same chamber I placed a closed gas tube containing a lot of the same splints & I find these are very irregular some a black somw brown. They are crocked & distorted, while those in main chamber as straight. This goest to prove that in preliminarizing at least the fibres should all be seperated from each other so as to allow free circulation, you better try this experiment. [drawings] As you use a low temperature I think you can bring the fibres out dead straight. I don't think they wil bend at the temperature you use-- You might rig up a single one tube X that will hold say 100 fibres put them in a mould & preliminarize couple days for fear they will bend you could cement the tops with sugar Dextrin or some cement so they will [have?] in fact you mgiht rig up 2 of the holders one in which the filiments are cemented at the top but guided at the bottom & one guided at top & botoom without cement.##Perhaps you might make simple metal racks cemetning and guiding the fibres then preliminiarizing them take out rack & use it in the bath This would save recementing--##Your O.N.F.No-- I forget but it is the treated one, (The other was NG) is doingfairly its life is nearly as good as factory lamps but it drops in CP worse-- Yours Nos 3, 4, 5. were set up today 20 in each at 140 C per hp-- I send you herewith in a box some filiments made by squirting a Compound through a die, bend them in form of a [drawing] same as old regular lamps--preliminarize them same as usual & then treat in No 6 as 17 will effect the stuff-- Then carbonize & send me back 2 or 3 doz to go in Lamps-- You can run these through with your other runs-- You will not need to put them in forms as they do not appreciably shirnk, & I don’t think will stick together-- The reason I want them ben in [drawing] form is that I think they will be too brittle to bend after carboniztion, you better make a few straight to test this question. Yours Edison
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Author
Recipient
Date
1888-12-00
Type
Folder/Volume ID
X219-F
Document ID
X219A
Rights
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University