New Ideas

GOODS & SERVICES

All-Round Coverage. Du Pont Co. announced it will soon build a plant to produce Mylar, a new Cellophane-like film which it claims is two to eight times stronger than other films and unaffected by wide-range temperature changes. Mylar will be chiefly used as an electrical insulator, in packaging, and as a magnetic recording tape. Price: $3 a lb. v. 55-c- for Cellophane.

Better Bird Dog. Cessna Aircraft Co. flight-tested a two-passenger plane powered by Boeing's small turboprop engine, the world's first turboprop light plane. A piston-powered model of the plane, the "Bird Dog" has been widely used in Korea on observation missions. The turboprop version, which has a cruise rating of 175 h.p., is lighter than earlier models, and has somewhat longer range and can operate on all grades and ranges of fuel, a big advantage in combat zones.

Plaster Paneling. Fondly eying the amateur home fixers, U.S. Gypsum Co. showed off its new sheetrock gypsum wallboard, which it hopes will replace plywood for many uses. The board is fire-resistant, sound-dampening, and can be easily glued to old plaster walls or any other smooth surface. Panels are 16 in. wide and 8 to 10 ft. long, come in plain, knotty pine and striated finishes, and they can easily be cut with a penknife. Price: 6-c- to 16-c- a sq. ft.

Cooler Tooler. For tooling tough alloys, Britain's Impregnated Diamond Products Ltd. began sale of Sparcatron, a device which uses an electrical charge instead of diamond-edged tools to machine metals to tolerances as close as one-twenty-five-millionth of an inch. Sparcatron generates no heat (which may make the conventional cutting tool inaccurate) and has no cutting edge to get dull. Price: about $2,730.

Slim & Slick. Manhattan's L. E. Waterman Co. began marketing a ball-point pen with a retractable sapphire tip. Slimmer that a conventional pen, it weighs less than an ounce. Waterman claims that the polished sapphire point is "the smoothest writing instrument ever developed." Price: $6.

Baby Brain. In Manhattan, Curta Calculator Co. demonstrated a pocket-size calculator, made in Liechtenstein, which looks like a small, black pepper mill, and grinds out answers in much the same way. It can perform some standard calculating operations faster than many electric machines, and unlike most will calculate square roots almost instantaneously. Price: $131.75.

Midget Recorder. A portable wire recorder, weighing slightly more than 2 lbs. and no bigger than a shaving kit, was put on the market by West Germany's Monske & Co. for businessmen or reporters who want to dictate while on the move. The Minifon is equipped with a small microphone, two dry-cell batteries, enough wire spools for 2 1/2 hours of recording. Price: $162.

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