Dilatant Compound 3179
December 22, 2011 8:00 AM   Subscribe

We went into the Doubleday bookshop at Fifth Avenue and Fifty Second Street the other day, intending, in our innocence, to buy a book, and found all the clerks busy selling Silly Putty, a gooey, pinkish, repellent-looking commodity that comes in plastic containers the size and shape of eggs.
How an item in the August 26th, 1950 New Yorker's Talk of the Town column turned a marketing consultant into a millionare by Christmas.

During World War II, as Japan picked off Southeast Asian nations that supplied most of the world's rubber, American chemists set to work on developing a synthetic alternative to the material which at the time, the U.S. military used 32 pounds of for every service member. Many of the first attempts ended in failure. In 1943, one of those formulas, created by James Wright and his colleague Rob Roy McGregor, involved blending boric acid and silicone oil. The resulting Non-Newtonian fluid was considered a poor substitute for rubber and was subsequently shelved

In 1949, toy storeowner Ruth Fallgatter learned about the material and contacted marketing consultant Peter Hodgson about including the material in her annual Christmas Toy Catalog. Hodgeson packaged one once of the material in clear plastic packages and sold it through Ms Fallgatter, in her catalog and in her store, just a few blocks down the street from Yale. Yale students were in fact some of her biggest customers for the material. But the following year, in spite of it being her number two selling item (ironically losing to Crayola Crayons, the Silly Putty brand's current owner) the toy storeowner decided not to include it as part of her Christmas wares the following year. This, however, did not deter Mr. Hodgeson.

In the late spring of 1950, and already over $12,000 in debt, Mr Hodgson borrowed $147 and bought a batch of the compound and some leftover plastic Easter eggs. He packaged one once of the material in each egg and took the material to New York. There he convinced the buyers at the Doubleday Bookstore to carry the material. In August of that year, an unnamed columnist at the The New Yorker published the following tidbit about happening upon the product at that bookstore.
The shell of the egg is in two equal sections of different colors (various color combinations are offered); you pull them apart and there is the Silly Putty. We watched a demonstration of a few things that can be done with Silly Putty, and recalled a party we attended back in 1944. General Electric gave it to introduce to the press and public silicone, a freak substance its chemists had produced in the course of experiments in synthetic-rubber making. G.E. called it "bouncing putty;" it not only bounced like a rubber ball but stretched like taffy, and flew into a hundred pieces when hit by a hammer and then went right back together again. Well, Silly Putty is on the order of bouncing putty-for which, as far as we know, G. E. has never found any general practical use-but is being promoted on a purely recreational basis. It not only bounces when rolled in a ball and stretches like taffy but can be modeled into various nonpermanent shapes, and if pressed fiat against comic strips, it picks up the pictures, in color. If tugged at quickly, it breaks in a brittle way; if left alone, it sinks into a disinterested heap.

After absorbing the elementary facts about Silly Putty, including the price-a dollar an egg-we sought out Mr. Lee Weber, the manager of the bookshop, to ascertain the mysterious link between it and Doubleday. He told us that Silly Putty is the most terrific item the Doubleday shops have been privileged to handle since "Forever Amber." "Normally, we only handle books and phonograph records in our New York shops," he said. "We first heard of Silly Putty when our St. Louis shop, which has a toy department, stocked some eggs and had a sensational run on them. We got hold of Peter Hodgson, a New Haven man, who was responsible for turning them out, stocked them, and in the past month have sold over ten thousand eggs." It is Mr. Weber's opinion that Silly Putty is the biggest novelty of 1950. The Doubleday clerks seem to have a compulsion to toy with the stuff, he told us, and are always glad to demonstrate it. The eggs come in regular pasteboard egg crates containing a dozen each, and people often buy a dozen at a time-at no reduction in price. Compulsively picking up an egg, l\1r. Weber opened it, took out the putty, rolled it into a sphere, and ricocheted it off an unabridged dictionary. "'We sell the eggs mostly to men who claim they're buying them for their children," he continued. "Actually, Silly Putty is a fine toy for adults. We don't recommend giving it to children under seven, in any event. They may get it in their hair or swallow it. It's not toxic, though. A man came in the other day and said that his little boy had swallowed his Silly Putty two days before and was feeling fine."

After leaving Doubleday's, we got in touch with Hodgson, the manufacturer, who agrees with Weber that Silly Putty is a dish for adults. "It means five minutes of escape from neurosis," he said. "It means not having to worry about Korea or family difficulties. And it appeals to people of superior intellect; the inherent ridiculousness of the material acts as an emotional release to hard-pressed adults." About a year ago, Hodgson told us, he happened to pick up a blob of silicone that a chemist had left at the house of a friend of his. It fascinated him, and stirred his commercial imagination. "I figured that maybe I wasn't the brightest guy in the world," he said, "but at least I was thirty-eight, and if I got a bang out of it, other adults would. I arranged with some chemical engineers in Schenectady to turn out a few trial batches for me. When we got just what we wanted, I patented the name Silly Putty and was ready to go into business. That was last spring, around Easter time. Easter eggs being so unimaginative, I decided to combine my putty with Easter and give them both a lift. The stuff costs me seven dollars a pound, or almost as much as bar silver; that's why I can only sell an ounce of it for a dollar. We've started making it in thousand-pound lots and hope to get the price down." We asked Hodgson what he believed the future of Silly Putty to be and he had an emphatic answer. "It's here to stay," he said, and cited a number of practical uses for it. Hospital patients can use it for therapeutic hand exercises. A New Haven surgeon works out with it every morning before operating. It is a perfect furniture leveller; you just stick some of it under the short leg of a jiggly table and there you are. Hodgson told us that he buys his eggshells from a plastic company, that he has orders on hand for a quarter-million putty eggs, that he now has a staff of ten workmen and expects to increase it to thirty soon, and that by Labor Day his output will be great enough to fill, belatedly, a large order from Macy's toy department. "We'll sell a million eggs by Christmas," he said.


Silly Putty is Dilantant Non-Newtonian fluid, which means that unlike typical fluids, its viscosity is dependant on more than temperature and pressure. Non-Newtonian fluids also demonstrate a change in viscosity based on the force that is applied. The more force applied, the more resistance the fluid demonstrates, which is why a five pound ball of it won't bounce when dropped from the top of a parking garage, or why it turns to pellets when mixed in a high speed blender, or why it seems to get up and boogie when placed on a speaker cone.

While Silly Putty is the most well known version of the material but it's also available under the brand Thinking Putty, where it's available in a clear formula, a thermographic formula, and a magentic formula.

You can make your own Non-Newtonian fluid by combining cornstarch and water, or by mixing borax, white glue, and water, a material affectionately known as Oobleck.

But to make genuine Silly Putty you'll need the following:

65% - Dimethyl Siloxane
17% - Silica
9% - Thixotrol ST
4% - Polydimethylsiloxane
1% - Decamethyl cyclopentasiloxane
1% - Glycerine
1% - Titanium Dioxide

It can, however, be purchased in bulk. Or it can be ordered directly from Dow Chemical as Dilatant Compound 3179.

Bonus material:
—From your childhood

The Original Silly Putty TV Commercial

A Silly Putty commercial from the 1960s

A Silly Putty commercial from the 1970s, the glow-in-the-dark Star Glow Putty

A Silly Putty commercial from the 1980s

A tiny movie about the making of silly putty

A brief documentary on the history of Silly Putty

A Silly Putty timeline

This post was informed and inspired by the excellent Stuff You Should Know Podcast about Silly Putty. Thanks Josh and Chuck!

And finally, a cranky old coot's one page resource on Silly putty: Wayne Smith's Silly Putty Page
posted by Toekneesan (30 comments total) 67 users marked this as a favorite
 
Those December awesome posts just keep on coming!!

I remember in college we (they) bounced a 4-ft-diameter ball of silly putty off the roof of a building. (Before the event, they had to constantly keep the ball rolling around on the floor inside the building, otherwise it would have slowly collapsed.) It bounced once, a couple of feet in the air, and then shattered into several pieces.
posted by Melismata at 8:07 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


After leaving Doubleday's, we got in touch with Hodgson, the manufacturer, who agrees with Weber that Silly Putty is a dish for adults. "It means five minutes of escape from neurosis," he said. "It means not having to worry about Korea or family difficulties. And it appeals to people of superior intellect; the inherent ridiculousness of the material acts as an emotional release to hard-pressed adults."

Wow.
posted by clockzero at 8:12 AM on December 22, 2011 [3 favorites]


See this is why I should never come into serious money. I would VERY EASILY buy 20 pounds of putty on a whim, forget about it, and then leave it, gelatinous cube like , in the hallways to terrify and confuse my kidnappees guests

I mean really the only thing keeping me from buying it now is a lack of capital and the fact that it's not translucent
posted by The Whelk at 8:13 AM on December 22, 2011 [6 favorites]


or why it seems to get up and boogie when placed on a speaker cone

Dear god, it's a baby shoggoth!
posted by JHarris at 8:20 AM on December 22, 2011 [3 favorites]


Awesome post! My silly putty as a kid seemed mainly a vehicle to pick up cat hair, and I don't imagine that has changed if I bought some now.
posted by maxwelton at 8:21 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


I remember in college we (they) bounced a 4-ft-diameter ball of silly putty off the roof of a building. (Before the event, they had to constantly keep the ball rolling around on the floor inside the building, otherwise it would have slowly collapsed.) It bounced once, a couple of feet in the air, and then shattered into several pieces.

I want to watch this on repeat forever.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:28 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


Oobleck.

I had this book as a kid and everytime someone complains about rain, I cringe.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:29 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


"It means five minutes of escape from neurosis," he said.

The New Yorker really knows their audience.
posted by empath at 8:31 AM on December 22, 2011 [8 favorites]


I love this sentence so much:
"I figured that maybe I wasn't the brightest guy in the world," he said, "but at least I was thirty-eight...
posted by Brainy at 8:32 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


Great post!

During World War II, as Japan picked off Southeast Asian nations that supplied most of the world's rubber, American chemists set to work on developing a synthetic alternative to the material which at the time, the U.S. military used 32 pounds of for every service member.

For a fascinating account of the race to explore the Amazon for other sources of rubber (as well as some righteous accounts of hallucinogen ingestion by conservative university types), check out One River, by Wade Davis.
posted by OmieWise at 8:35 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


Terrific post! The passionless way that sea captain spins the globe is priceless.
posted by activitystory at 8:37 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


The Oobleck link in the post is broken.
posted by onya at 8:39 AM on December 22, 2011


Okay Crystal Clear Puddy "glass" is a real thing, I just need to buy it in bulk and fill my doorways with it so the unsuspecting and wall in and be forever entombed within' my sinister puddy prisons.
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 AM on December 22, 2011 [4 favorites]


Thinking Putty, where it's available in ... a magentic formula.

Soft at rest! Firm under pressure! Highly magnetic! It's a perfect storm of solution and no problem to apply it to! Gah!
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:51 AM on December 22, 2011 [4 favorites]


The problem is not having silly putty.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:59 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


I myself am fully composed of dilettante compound 1976. While not terribly flexible I do arrive pre-stretched to over six feet.
posted by komara at 9:13 AM on December 22, 2011 [4 favorites]


it not only bounced like a rubber ball but stretched like taffy, and flew into a hundred pieces when hit by a hammer and then went right back together again. . . It can be modeled into various nonpermanent shapes, and if pressed fiat against comic strips, it picks up the pictures, in color. If tugged at quickly, it breaks in a brittle way; if left alone, it sinks into a disinterested heap.
. . . it can be used as insulation, lubricant, construction material, or fuel. . . it has the strength of steel, the flexibility of rubber, and the nutritional value of beef stew. . . Brown-25: another fine product. . . from Uranus.
And another fine post. . . from Toekneesan. Thanks!
 
posted by Herodios at 9:32 AM on December 22, 2011


mmmm, difficult to think
posted by techno blogger at 9:50 AM on December 22, 2011


Five pounds of silly putty is not bulk. 150 pounds of silly putty is bulk. In the mid 90s a housemate bought the minimum shipment direct from dow, for about $1/pound. It came in three boxes each about as big as one of those boxes paper comes in. It was pretty amazing stuff.
posted by aspo at 9:52 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


A metafilter classic post, well done!
posted by spitbull at 9:57 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]


One day I shall order silly putty in bulk. One day...
posted by X-Himy at 10:34 AM on December 22, 2011


Mod note: The situation has been Ooblecktified.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:44 AM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Not to be confused with the tiny, plump, little angels one often encounters in the corners of paintings from the Renaissance—Silly putti.
posted by Toekneesan at 10:52 AM on December 22, 2011 [7 favorites]


What was the "forever amber"? The link doesn't work.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Dang.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Amber_(novel) Kinda' prided myself in using only one wikipedia entry. Then I goofed it. So, ha!, it had zero wikipedia entries.

and I sure picked the wrong time to post. Should have proofed a couple of more times (damn you OCR) and let Rhaomi descend to below the fold.
posted by Toekneesan at 3:07 PM on December 22, 2011


Silly... putti

*falls over laughing*
posted by BlueHorse at 5:16 PM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]



What was the "forever amber"?

The thing sprayed around to encase dimensional soft sports and vortexes.
posted by The Whelk at 8:22 PM on December 22, 2011 [1 favorite]


Well crap. Now I have bunch of putty coming to my house. No, I'm NOT an impulse online shopper - why do you ask?
posted by in the methow at 9:29 PM on December 22, 2011


24 hour puddy people
posted by The Whelk at 10:03 PM on December 22, 2011


'Forever Amber' was a tacky, vaguely pornographic novel, I read it with increasing disgust.
Love Silly Putty. I would love to have some clear Silly Putty!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:59 AM on December 23, 2011


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