Business & Finance: Plywood Shortage

Plywood—which replaces 250 pounds of scarce aluminum per airplane in making combat training planes—is growing scarce itself.

Industry officials say that if output of this manufactured lumber were doubled, or tripled, over the record 3½ billion sq. ft. (on a ⅜in. basis) turned out last year, war needs would gobble it up. Beech Aircraft Corp. has already begun production on an all-plywood bomber trainer. Fairchild has been turning out all-plywood primary trainers for some time. Curtiss-Wright is using the same stuff to make twin-engined cargo airplanes.

Last week, Lawrence Ottinger, president of U.S. Plywood Corp., told stockholders that their company’s “products had found their way into so many war uses that the company could not supply more than a fraction of the demand, despite substantial increases in production facilities.” A few production uses are: gliders, torpedo boats, mine sweepers, cargo vessels, army landing boats, defense housing, pipe, chemical vats, shipping containers.

Three steps have been taken to increase and distribute the supply: 1) A group of furniture manufacturers of Jamestown, N.Y. (the “Little Grand Rapids”) formed American Aviation Corp. Aided by aviation technicians, the furniture men aim to provide plywood planes and gliders on a mass-production basis for the Navy. 2) In New York City, a group of plastics manufacturers formed the Plastic War Production Association, will pool machinery and knowledge. 3) WPB this week issued an order providing for complete allocation of Douglas fir among high priority holders.

Highly skilled labor and high-precision machinery, both scarce, are required to make plywood. Precisions adjustable to 1/1,000 of an inch, and scarce chemicals such as phenol (used in the synthetic glue which made modern plywood possible) are additional problems. Perhaps most formidable is the lack of giant “hot plate” presses which form this world’s strongest structural material under pressure up to 200 lb. per square inch.