PASA- GUM Dear friends,
Two days back I was posting a donation cheque to a temple ina cover. I was using glue stick to close the cover. I thought about the developmentin the field of gums and thought of writing about it Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 18-4-2021 1 Rice and iddali In my middle school days what immediately available wasrice prepared and freshly prepared iddalies to use in place of gum. Rice couldbe used at least two days. 2 Maida boiled andmade more fluid For pasting cinema wall posts and other advertisements, theperson used to bring fresh prepared maida liquid and apply on the side to bepasted. But maida paste would be fermenting and give foul smell after some time 3 Addition of Thurisu(blue stone/copper sulphate) Addition of thurisu gave light blue colour and preventedfoul smell of maida about a week. This was used for binding and we used toprepare and keep for paste use during high school days and college days. Weused to preserve blue stone in non- reaching places.It is slightly poisonous. In fact during high school days when expansion ofblue stone studied, we never knew it was poisonous. 4 Gum Arabic During 1967’s I wasJunior Engineer. While placing indent for Gum Arabic for pasting covers, Inever knew it was a resin from a tree popular in Arabian countries and it wasan IMPORTED item. The gobbles when heated will melt and expand and used to give good adhesive. A small quantity wasmelted in an iron thava (Karandi) and the gum prepared used to be sufficientfor at least a week for closing covers. This was stored in a tin and applied with a brush/ stick or sometimesfinger. When we were not getting gum Arabic we used to have gumprepared using Maida boiling it with water and adding Thurisu (blue stone)ground. The thurisu is added for preserving the gum and give a peculiar smelland light blue-sky colour. Rice powder was less adhesive and hence Maida ispreferred. About a few years back also we used to get paste in Post officesof this sort. The shelf life is about 2-3 days paste was one using thurisu. 5 Camlin syntheticpaste By 1968 it was common, we used to get Camlin paste in blueconical fibre container, the cap fitted with a brush to apply. Later gum camein large bottles and it was transferred and given in small bottles to the persons.Official important items were put in cover and pasted by ourselves Before the appearance of gums in tubes and bottles theabove was the normal method. The bottled Gums like Camlin use natural ingredients and is nontoxic. 6 Gum tubes and gluesticks Gum started to appear in tubes like that of Colgate paste.Later appeared fevi sticks and now glue sticks, very convenient to carry withus. I am not sure of the technology ofgluing of stamps, postal envelops, when just some water is applied, becomesadhesive. A person who does not get attached to others is called- Pasayillatha manushyan.(A person without glue) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/921328229.2310481.1618714727589%40mail.yahoo.com.
