Beetle Cement

The above image comes from a Beetle Synthetic Cements brochure, circa 1938, which provides an interesting snapshot of the era from both a technical and a historical point of view.  It starts out with a clear and simple disclosure of the divorce of the British source of the urea formaldehyde cement from the German origin ‘Kaurit Glue W’: Beetle Cement is ‘… made in England, from English materials – and to an English formula.’

The effectiveness of the ‘wet’ properties of the cement are compared with the inadequate casein glue.

Qualification of the cement to DTD.335 is outlined, as well as its use in V3 structural ply.

While the ply in the Vampire is V3, the cement is DTD.484. However, this is only an evolution of the earlier spec, as the basic cement and hardener is the same.