Please help me identify this material

Try a google for leatherette. I just might be what you are looking for. It has a soft plastic face, through which you can see the backing weave like your photos show and the inside might look like a very thin layer of felt. Very soft to the touch.

Dave

I don't think so, I know the stuff in that picture, tough, hard wearing and strong, as the OP says it's a dense fibre board of some sort. It was used extensively for storage boxes and the like perhaps up to the 60's or 70's at a push.

What the stuff is actually called I haven't a clue.

It looks to me like what I used to call "Vulcanised cardboard". I had an old school case made of something of similar colour and looks, and it's still in one piece storing some papers in the shed and usable. "n" years later!

I'm not sure if this is the same sort of stuff

Quite possibly some form of mill board. Unfortunately for identification, there are many different types and I do not know enough to help further. A particularly tough form called tar board was made from old naval ropes.

A little bit of information here:

PRBP? phenolic resin bonded paper? used in circuit boards..until modern epoxy came along, and glass fibre

It was the fiberglass of its day. In the dayes when phenolic resin was the answer to everything..bakelite, formica, melamine IIRC, ebonite etc.

It's what used to give electronics That Awful Smell when they overheated..

If it looks like fabric, it may n fact be just that - cotton or linen impregnated with phenolic resin.

I don't think so. The stuff pictured looks to me like the stuff that the output bins in the computer lab were made of. I'm not sure about PRBP, but the SRBP that I used to use was much harder and stiffer than the material of the output bins, which really were like some sort of improved cardboard. I'd suspect it of being cardboard that was surface impregnated with a synthetic resin, which I suppose would be PRIP??

Also, I have somewhere a canvas and PRBF dispatch case from my uncle in WW2; this also isn't like the OP's stuff.

phenolic resin as that tends to be brittle and this stuff isn't brittle.

Thank you all for your input, it is most insightful and much appreciated. Thanks loads for the link Bill, this is the closest thing to a supply have.

After a bit of research, I came across a few suppliers who are still selling products which appear identical(ish) to my elusive container. This one:

The stuff from RH Nuttall does appear to be a bit different as it is a vulcanised product but hopefully with a bit of experimentation I'll achieve the results I'm after. I only hope they can supply me with small enough amounts.

Chris

I know what you mean now and I can't remember what it was called. It was the use of the word flexable that pushed me down the road towards leatherette.

Dave

But "plastic" on the web page. I'd not trust plastic to be anything like as durable as our mystery material.

I wouldn't get hung up on the word "vulcanised". It normally refers to natural rubber heat and sulphur but can also refer to similar processes that harden other materials:

vulcanize

verb (used with object), -ized, -iz?ing.

1. to treat (rubber) with sulfur and heat, thereby imparting strength, greater elasticity, durability, etc.

1. to subject (a substance other than rubber) to some analogous process, as to harden it.

Also, especially British, vulcanise.

Yeah I'm guessing that the webpage is using loose terminology there as I've seen a number of outlets selling the same product and using different descriptions (but they all use the same catalogue page). I'd be interested to know what company actually manufactures those containers.

As for vulcanise, whether it's accurate or not, I'm comforted to know how and what they use to make this fibreboard.