How it began
George Pratley, born in Johannesburg in 1917, started the Pratley Manufacturing and Engineering Company in 1948 in a rented garage in Hillbrow with one employee, Sam Matlebe, doing jobs for nearby mines. He later bought a site in Krugersdorp and built workshops there. In the early 1960s the company developed Pratley Putty as an insulator and adhesive for fixing brass terminals inside the cable junction boxes that were among its top-selling products.
How it works
Pratley Putty is an epoxy adhesive supplied as a putty that can be pressed into place by hand and then sets hard. It both bonds and insulates, which is why it was first used to hold electrical terminals. It soon proved useful for other jobs, such as mending cracked swimming pools and repairing pipelines.
How it spread
The product moved from the mining supply trade into consumer and industrial markets. It was later also made as a paste and manufactured under license in the United States and New Zealand. NASA used the adhesive in 1965 to bond components on its Ranger 9 lunar probe, and in 1969 it was used to secure equipment on the Apollo 11 landing craft Eagle. It was also used in repair work on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Where it stands today
George Pratley died in 1983 and the company stayed in the family, led by his son Kim and then his grandson Andrew. In 2019 the South African Mint featured Pratley Putty in a commemorative coin series on local inventions. The company now sells several versions, including Pratley Quickset Putty and Pratley Steel Putty.
