Making rubber: Pressing out the water
About this recording
- Creator
- Kristin Post
- Date created
- September 24, 2000
- Duration
- 1:03
- Location
- Koh Sukorn, Thailand
- File
- MP3
- License
- This recording copyright ©2000. Terms of use
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for cottage industry, Koh Sukorn, manufacturing, press, rubber, rubber-making, Thailand, tools, and water.
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The island of Koh Sukorn, Thailand, has many rubber trees. This one man I encountered owned his own trees, collected the rubber, and processed it by squeezing it into bath-mat sized rectangular slabs. Here you can hear the recording of that process.
The rubber started out in metal pans, that looked like large rectangular baking pans. Mud would remove the rubber from the pan, place it on the cement floor, and squish the rubber with his feet. The water from the rubber would be somewhat removed. Then he transferred the rubber mat to a metal roller, where he cranked the handle, and the roller expelled more water (kind of like an old fashioned clothes dryer.) He then peeled the mats away from the pan and hung them in the sun to dry. Finally, he dumped the water from the pan and scraped off residual water.
This is a recording of one of the final stages, where Mud is using the roller press to expel more water. You can hear the sound of the crank turning in one direction, then the other at faster and then slower paces.
From my journal:
Lucky me. I want to record sounds of making rubber. Wake up early and take out bike- first see man collecting rubber, but he didn’t want to be recorded. Then I see old man I danced with last night (at karaoke party at resort.) He is actually making the rubber. So I go back to the hotel, get batteries, and record him. When he’s finished with his six mats, he takes me to his house for naam and papaya. Dam, who works on the resort, shows up, and we exchange crucial info- his name is Mud, and he is 54 (looks much older.) Dam is 21. Then Dam leaves, and since it is impossible for me to say much more, I leave.
