New Peacetime Uses lor Hardboards Being Developed

By Matthew P. McCulloush President, Masonite Corporation

For thpee years now the hardboard industry, in company with the rest of America's productive capacity, has been at war. Since Pearl Harbor more than a billion feet of hardboard, a material that didn't even exist during the First World War, has been delivered to aid the present war effort.

Even more signihcant, however, are the many uses that have been found for the industry's products under.the stimulus of wartime demand. Long a tried and proven material in the buildihg and construction trades, hardboard will emerge from the war period as a basic commodity with scores of practical applications to many phases of our peacetime life.

Although home, farm and commercial construction has been largely suspended during the war, the new knowledge that has been gained of their characteristics and adaptability will make pressed woods more useful than ever in this field when stocks again are available in the hands of the dealers who serve the building trades.

Among the first industries to find a new application in the war economy for this versatile material was the aircraft industry. Early in the war, a semi-plastic hardboard die stock was used for heavy-duty dies to stamp out the thou,, sands of light metal plane parts that go into the complicated bombers and fighter planes manufactured for the arr,ned forces. These dies were easier, to construct, as they could be formed with standard wood working tools. Die stock used for assembly jigs was six times lighter than steel, an important factor where women were engaged in production.

Hardboard's strength and durability early recommended it to the heavy electrical trades for instrument panels and other control devices, and the United States Signal Corps found it practical for portable telephone switchboard equipment that is now in use all over the world.

As America's food production increased. farmers turned to hardboards for mass-produced prefabricated poultry and hog houses, grain storage bins and silos. Thousands clf these light but durable farm buildings are in use all over America, aiding in the production of food for ,civilian and armed force use, as well as for shipment to the United Nations.

When peace comes, these uses and many others not mentioned here will provide a much broader market for the industry's products than existed be{ore the war. Furthermore, these materials will be almost instantly available for postwar utilization in industry, the manufacture of new products and home building, for the hardboard industry faees no problem of reconversion. Production can continue without retooling and with no interruption other than the brief period needed to repair and recondition machinery that has been in almost continuous operation in support of the war effort for the past four years.

Designers and engineers, architects and builders already have on their drafting boards the plans for the postwar industrial expansion of America. I do not know when the day will come on which these plans will be realized, but I do know that hardboards, serving in the many new applications which ingerluity and resear,ch have found for them, will play an important part in the fulfillment of those plans.

Lt. Bobert T. Bonner Assigned To Scrn Frcrncisco CPA OIfice

Lieutenant Robt. T. Bonner, son of T. A. Bonner, Chapman Lumber Co., San Francisco, has been assigned to the San Francisco offrce of the Central Pur.chasing Agency, U. S. Engineers, T4 New Montgomery Street.

IIe was twice worrnded while serving with the 45th Infantry Division in Italy, and was awarded the Purple Heart.

Before entering the service he was with Chapman Lumber Co., Portland, and Gamerston & Green Lumber Co.. San Francisco.