A reader over on the guild inadvertently brought up a question I'd thought about myself, but never chased down. Do we have a record anywhere of the actual history of the paintball- as in the projectile itself?
The question came up when he saw a Quora conversation that basically said the paintball was invented, and then the pharmaceutical industry took the process and used it to make pills. Which is of course backwards, and by half a century- R. P. Sherer developed the rotary encapsulation method in 1933, and was well-established as a major world supplier of encapsulated materials long before paintball, the sport, was invented.
The question that brought up was simply what was the timeline of the actual paintball.
Lore has it the first Nelson balls were handmade with wax shells. I'm guessing- and that's part of the question- that shortly after development of the 007, etc. that they automated the manufacturing. We know that Nelson, up until recently, was making their own line of balls, so... did they buy and set up their own encapsulation line back in the oil-base days? Or did they contract out to another company- like RPS.
The other side of that coin is who pushed for the modern washable fill? Was that Nelson themselves, or was that contracted out to another encapsulator.
Or, was it Gaines, et al, who saw the sport was being limited by the non-washable semitoxic paint.
Does anyone know the answers? Is there's a write-up of the timeline anywhere? (I admit all I've done is check Wikipedia so far.)
Doc.
The question came up when he saw a Quora conversation that basically said the paintball was invented, and then the pharmaceutical industry took the process and used it to make pills. Which is of course backwards, and by half a century- R. P. Sherer developed the rotary encapsulation method in 1933, and was well-established as a major world supplier of encapsulated materials long before paintball, the sport, was invented.
The question that brought up was simply what was the timeline of the actual paintball.
Lore has it the first Nelson balls were handmade with wax shells. I'm guessing- and that's part of the question- that shortly after development of the 007, etc. that they automated the manufacturing. We know that Nelson, up until recently, was making their own line of balls, so... did they buy and set up their own encapsulation line back in the oil-base days? Or did they contract out to another company- like RPS.
The other side of that coin is who pushed for the modern washable fill? Was that Nelson themselves, or was that contracted out to another encapsulator.
Or, was it Gaines, et al, who saw the sport was being limited by the non-washable semitoxic paint.
Does anyone know the answers? Is there's a write-up of the timeline anywhere? (I admit all I've done is check Wikipedia so far.)
Doc.
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