Wall plug

Such anchors can attach one object to another in situations where screws, nails, adhesives, or other simple fasteners are either impractical or ineffective.

[3] Early wall plugs were thick-walled fibre tubes, made of parallel strings bonded with glue.

The Rawlings brothers conducted thousand of trials using many diverse materials in their search for the perfect plug.

Among the many solutions tested were plugs made of lead, zinc, natural and synthetic rubber, hemp fibres, glass, wood, and paper.

They imported Indian jute as it possessed natural resistance to the effects of humidity and for particularly damp conditions they developed a range of white bronze plugs.

Most current brands are plastic, first designed shortly after the Second World War by the German Fritz Axthelm.

One of the first of these mixtures was produced by Rawlplug and was composed of dry white asbestos fibres, sold loose in a tin.