Textolite - from fridge door to bench top.

Here is another link I found, looks like there have been a lot of different type of textolite. Look like you are right they say "Textolite is manufactured by way of direct hot pressing and impregnating coarse calico fabric with Bakelite lacquer."

uzkva.com/en/product/6

I think Bakelite, Textolite and Micarta are all very similar materials. They're composite materials made with a Phenolic resin that takes heat and pressure to set.

Textolite and Bakelite use some form of powder filler like flour, sawdust, or that sort of thing.
Micarta is, well it was, a Westinghouse brand and is made with various fabric as the reinforcement and filler. Linen fabric for a finer texture, often used in small electrical insulators, and canvas for larger or sturdier things, like cam shaft gears, other insulators.

I have literately a ton and a half of Micarta in my shop and am quite familiar with it. Seeing the black strips in our new old GE fridge I was sure they were bakelite or the equivalent even before I began reading here or knew the term Textolite.

At home I have an old industrial plastics hand or text book sort of thing. I'll see if it mentions Textolite, I do recall it discusses Micarta and Bakelite.

Grigg

I had assumed that Textolite was a name GE had given to bakelite, until I removed the breaker strips and found them to be flexible. The kind of bakelite I'm familiar with, as used in things like old telephones, radios, and electrical fittings, uses a filler such as flour and sawdust. It is strong, but very brittle. But what GE has created is not that. It's obvious from other aspects of the fridge design that GE didn't like using other people's patents, so perhaps this one was a way around bakelite?

Did some more research and reading today on Phenolic plastics; those made with Pherol-Aldehyde resin. A thermoset plastic that once set can't be remelted.

First some history:
-Bakelite, phenol-formaldehyde, was invented by Leo Hendrik Baekeland in 1907.  See the "Bakelizer"
-He then opened his own factory in 1910; The General Bakelite Company.
-General Electric, and Westinghouse Electric were among some of the early customers/users.


From the Journal of Chemical Education Dec. 1925
    Phenol-formaldehyde resin ...is the basis of the various forms of phenol resin products found on the market today (1925), and sold under the name "Bakelite."
        These forms are of four general kinds:
        1. Transparent Resin
        2. Molding Materials
        3. Liquid products -Varnish, Cement, Laquer, Enamel.
        4. Laminated sheets, Tubes, and Rods.
    The Laminated Product-
        In the manufacturer of Bakelite Laminated the same uncured resin is employed, dissolved in alcohol, for the impregnation of sheets of paper or of cloth.  These sheets after being freed from alcohol are plied upon one another to the desired thickness and subjected to strong pressure between the heated platens of a hydraulic press.


Here's an interesting bit from the November 1935 "Industrial and Engineering Chemistry"
-Laminated synthetic resinous products are manufactured by impregnating various fibrous base materials such as paper, canvas, linen, or asbestos, with the resin [phenol-formaldehyde] and subsequently laminating the impregnated base by the application of heat and pressure.  Some of the better known products of this character are offered under the trade names of Celoron, Dilecto, Formica, Micarta, Spauldite, Synthane, and Textolite.



So I've learned that Bakelite is the easy name for oxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, and that is, or starts as, phenol-formaldehyde resin.  Then you add any number of fillers, like wood flour, fabric and so on to make the different products. and as I suspected Textolote isn't anything really different, just a trade name for the same laminated phenolic material we're familiar with under different names.

To answer an earlier question of why the GE Textolite strips are flexible and not brittle like "Bakelite"  I believe the answer is Bakelite as we think of for distributor caps, knobs and things this is reasonably brittle is made with a powdered filler, and Textolite strips are made with paper sheets as filler, giving it more strength.

Hope that is useful,

Grigg




                

So,

Textolite is Formica essentially?
Speaking of which when growing up we had a Formica table in the kitchen that was super durable. Now all I can find is wood tables that burn easily if you set a hot potato or pot on it.

Whats the deal? Seems like we took a step backwards.

This is fascinating.I'm surprised we don't see its ilk used more often as the various properties are amazing. What is being used today that's so much "better"?

p.s.Chris, I have an old formica table in my Annex kitchen. (I've unconsiously recreated the imfamous Saturday Evening Post Dewey/Truman kitchen down to the toaster and Sunbeam vaculator!) It wears like iron. I'm more surprised to see its fall from favor in kitchen countertops. Except for very hot pots, it's such a great surface. Quiet, as well. However, I'm in the birthplace of formica.