Today’s radio feature says bravo for bakelite, an early form of plastic which brought radio to the people. When radios were first manufactured in the first twenty years of this century, they looked more like an experiment in a physics laboratory than something which was designed to entertain. Then some firms started using a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin for their cases, formed from an elimination reaction of phenol with formaldehyde, usually with a wood flour filler. It was developed in 1907–1909 by Belgian chemist Dr. Leo Baekeland. Wikipedia has more here. In this programme, broadcast on the Queens Day holiday in 1998, we visit the home of Willem Bos who has scoured the flea markets in the Netherlands is search of his passion for bakelite. Thanks too to Scott MacLeod Liddle for his terrific photo on Flickr.
