I vaguely recall some semi-crazy guy in England coming up with a home-made plastic that, he claimed, was fireproof, shock proof, whatever proof. I think he named it “Star Light”, but I may be wrong. IIRC he was immensely paranoid of giant corporations stealing his formula, also, IIRC, part of the super-secret formula involved hair spray.
Am I the semi-crazy guy here, or does anybody else remember this? Does anyone know what ever became of his miracle plastic?
You’re not crazy - I remember seeing the demonstration of it on the BBC pop-science programme Tomorrow’s World. I don’t know what became of the bloke afterwards, though.
I had some one similar come round to see me looking to help with reserach into his version of starlight. The problem with such plastics is that there is very little market for them. Fire proofing is actually bottom of the list of useful properties for a plastic. Lightness, toughness, processability etc are why you use a plastic. If you want fireproof material, use a ceramic, metal, concrete etc. It is actually quite easy to fireproof plastic, however you sacrifice some other property, usually toughness or lightness. It was not commercial