Rubber plantation factory

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Rubber factories are always located close to water and the plantation in order to avoid lost time, which can diminish the quality of the finished rubber product. After the latex has been gathered from the rubber trees, it is poured into huge ten to fifteen thousand-gallon vats at the plantation factory, where it is mixed with water and acid. Once it is mixed perfectly, it is quickly poured into smaller five hundred-gallon vats, which are shown in the photograph. Wet aluminum plates are plunged into the vats and the contents are left to settle. After the mixture coagulates (about ten hours later), the plates can be removed and the rubber coagulum unrolled in a continuous strip. Then it is compressed through a system of rollers and sliced into thin sheets of rubber. The sheets are placed on drying trolleys in large buildings, and wood-smoked for three to four days until completely dry.

Source for information about the object depicted in the image: Michon, Michel M. Indochina Memoir: Rubber, Politics, and War in Vietnam and Cambodia, 1955-1972. Tempe: Arizona State University Program for Southeast Asian Studies Monograph Series Press, 2001.

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