A distinction also has to be made between the “dope” used to strengthen and stiffen fabric wing coverings in both model and full-size aircraft, versus the glue used to hold model parts together. Both are traditionally toxic.
…which suddenly makes me wonder if this might be the origin of “dope” as a synonym for “fool” (before it became a synonym for excellent)
1 Like
plumbers use pipe dope, but I never considered it might be due to the toxicity. I assumed it was derived from dope as “truth” or “realness” as in “give me the dope on Oswald’s connection to the CIA.” ergo pipe dope is the real deal, the product that works.
but now I’m not so sure. it could easily be your version.
when I was a mere sprout, my pops was a newspaper ad man and did ad mock-ups using composition sheets, cold type and rubber cement. I always thought that was cool. many years later, we moved to podunk and the publisher of the weekly rag there was an old editor from the paper pops worked at. well, I ended up working for that paper as a page compositor, sticking galleys of type and headlines to composition sheets with rubber cement. as the junior comp, it was my duty to fill the squirty oil cans with rubber cement in a back room of a small, OLD, ill-ventilated building. the solvent in that stuff would make the room spin and, on a couple occasions, give me the “wah-wahs”. fog the head real gud…
not my choice of mind-altering chemical.
(nope. since pops owned the ice cream store just 2 doors down from the newspaper, I much preferred his NO2 “whippets” for that. so sorry, pops. yes it was me, not the kids that worked for you!)
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
