504,720. Cables ; joints. STANDARD TELEPHONES & CABLES, Ltd., SCOTT, T. R., and WEBB, J. K. Oct. 26, 1937, No. 29224. [Classes 36 and 38 (i)] Barrier joints or terminations in impregnated power cables are prepared by building up the insulation around the core or cores with tapes of fibrous insulating material impregnated with polymerized material, basting the impregnated tapes with polymerizable materials at intervals during the building-up operation and disposing a protective sleeve around the built-up insulation. The tapes may be impregnated with polystyrene and they may be basted with monomeric or partially polymerized styrene; the styrene may be blended with one or more other monomers, e.g. p-divinyl benzene. The tapes may be completely impregnated with polymer or merely lacquered or surface impregnated therewith, in which case the tapes may be pre-impregnated with hydrocarbon or like compound. Styrene stabilized with quinone and treated so that the induction period is over may be used ; also, the monomer may contain accelerators, e.g. benzoyl peroxide. Plasticizers, e.g. abalyn, methyl, ethyl or propyl naphthalene, phenanthrene, fluorene or diphenyl, or fillers may also be added. A polymerizable material may be used for basting which is different from the polymerized material used as impregnant. Spaces in joints may be filled with a material, e.g. rubber, which is swollen by the monomer and the joint or termination may finally be evacuated and filled with monomer which is then polymerized, or layers of tinned copper tape may be wound tightly over the joint insulation and soldered together and to the sheaths, a sleeve being applied overall; or the sleeve may be applied directly over the insulation and the space filled with a lead tin alloy. A joint in a belted multicore cable may be prepared by building up the insulation around the cores as above, filling the worming spaces with a liquid or plastic insulating material which will solidify and forming a barrier in the belt insulation with impregnated tapes basted at intervals as above. In the case of impregnated screened multicore cables, the barrier in the worming spaces may be of metal. In the case of terminations, the stranded conductor may be filled with solder and a solid ferrule applied thereto, the tapes being taken over the ferrule and metal filling or a swelling material may be encased in a short plumbed metal sleeve at the termination of the sheath. For multicore cables, the insulated cores may be threaded into an end cap fitted with exit pipes, the insulation being built up around the protruding cores, or the insulation of each core may be built up and thereafter threaded into an end cap, either of metal or insulating material. Specifications 429,611; 464,923, (Group VIII], and 492,331 are referred to.