Plywood Producers Study Post-War Pattern

Reseorch Beins Undertaken Now to Gear for Future Promotion Manufacturers Told at Meeting

"Get ready now to go to market again" as soon as the war is won. That is the way W. E. Difford, managing director of Douglas Fir Plywood Association, presented the post-war pattern for plywood to the 150 leaders of that industry when they met for their annual business session at Tacoma, Wash., recently.

He forecast a sweeping upturn in new construction, especially in homes and on the farm, with the return of peace but warned the operators of the 31 Pacific Northwest plywood mills there will be new competitors in the building field and renewed and expanded merchandising progiams for all other materials.

"Today the plywood industry is paying the penalty of leadership," was the manager's summation pointing out that the panels have become established as the material that does more different building jobs than any other. To assure plywood-it's a household word today-a continued leading role in the post-war economy, Mr. Difford stressed that a multi-point program must be maintained vigorously during the war period when, of ngcessity, all manufacturing efforts of the industry are geared to national needs.

"Foremost of the factors that will contribute to plywood's continued top-ranking place in the building field is constant improvement in product," said the managing director as he outlined the promotional agenda of the industry for these war years. This is to come through laboratory and field research and advancement of manufacturing techniques.

Iechnicians Added

The research program, first undertaken several years ago, already has been greatly expanded through addition of technicians and new testing machines at the association's Tacoma laboratory. Experiments being undertaken there today are rushed to bring clear answers to the flood of. questions concerning physical properties of plywood that have come as builders and manufacturers turn to plywood for airplanes, oil barges, crates, barrels, structural members, tubes, tanks, prefabricated buildings.

Long-term laboratory studies-including the exposure fences in various parts of the nation to give accurate information concerning weathering of painted and unpainted panels-are being accelerated also to provide new treatments, new applications for plywood in homes, offices, buildings. Paint studies, finishing techniques, join! treatments, get ranking attention. Then there is the development of the combined use of plastics or spun glass and plywood that promises to offer entirely new materials with which to build and decorate.

Field research is being undertaken with technical and agricultural schools and with industries that are leaning on the material to meet new demands. These trials of new uses of the panels are expected to uncover whole new markets. Mr. Difford listed 59 separate projects testing the perforrnances of the panels in that many different farm applications alone. Then there are studies of the job plywood is doing for the different railroads in boxcars and reefers; for boat builders either as the primary material or for bulkheads, compartments; for airplane manufacturers for structural parts, wing tips, pontoons, fuselages; for manufacturers as cogs, wheels, trays in the production lines of many different products; finally, the contributions ply-

Reprerenting in Southern Crlilomia: Thc Paciftc Lumbcr Company-\(/endling-Nathan C9 wood is making toward more livable homes of conventional construction as well as making feasible the mass-production of prefabricated houses.

Adding that the research program is to include market studies, the manager laid before the plywood men the longrange, broad-gauged advertising program as determined by the industry's management committee. In essence, the plan includes continuation of advertising throughout the war years to carry the message of the physical properties of plywood to the specifiers and consumers. The trade journals are to remain the crux of this effort. Then, an expanded promotional program with return to .,business as before" with'sales facts directed at the housing fieldprobably prefabrication will be a mainspring-the farm field, the industrial market and marine users.

Book of the Year

The report to the industry was made in book form with Mr. Difford glancing at the pages in a large book to guide his talk. But there was no fiction in the story he related-it was a mere statement of facts. And he got down to basic principles when he told operators, ,,you,ve got to cut manufacturing costs of plywood so the sale price can eventually be reduced and at the same time you must con_ stantly improve the quality of your product.,, This accomplishment is to come through increased plant efficiency and new manufacturing techniques. Even during the past year several entirely new machines have been introduced that revolutionize certain steps in the manufacture of the panels.

Accomplishments of the industry during the past year- normally the predominant subject at an association meet- ing-got relatively little attention. The plywood manufacturers already knew that production had rocketed until it now is at the rate of two billion square feet a year-four times the output of 1938. They knew also that the bulk of their output goes directly to Army and Navy needs or houses for war production workers. That the government is "in their businesses" for the duration.

Plywood at War

Mr. Difford merely summed up that 90 per cent of the output goes for war needs and gave some forceful figures showing the importance of plywood to the winning oi this world battle. The plywood being produced in 1942 can provide the following national needs: 100,000 five_room houses for war workers, 10,000 barracks, 10,000 Army camp buildings, 100,000 Army hutments, 1,000,000 Army l,ockers,

100,000 airplane engine crates, 300 minesweepers, 50,000 assault boats, 100,000 pontoon boats, 25,000 sentry stations, 25,0n trailers, 2,0@ trailer camp buildings-and still there will be half a billion square feet for factory and farm buildings, gliders, airplanes, railroad cars and l@ other specific major war uses.

The plywood men named N. O. Cruver, vice-president of Wheeler Osgood Sales Corp. of Tacoma, as the president of Douglas Fir Plywood Association for the next vear. He has been a member of the firm which he now manages for more than 2O yearc. Mr. Cruver succeeds E. W. Daniels, president of Harbor Plywood Corp. of Hoquiam, Wash., who headed the association for the past two years.

Frost Snyder, president of Vancouver plywood & Veneer Co. of Vancouver, 'Wash., was elected vice-president of the association. J. P. Sirnpson, vice-president of Buffelen Lbr. & Mfg. Co. of Tacoma, is the new treasurer of the industry and H. E. Tenzler, president of Northwest Door Co. of Tacoma, the new secretary.

Trustees of the all-industry board are: T. B. Malarkey, vice-president of M & M Wood Working Co. of portland, Ore.; Clay Brown, manager of plywood division of Smith Wood-Products, Inc., of Portland; J. R. Robinson, president of Robinson Manufacturing Co. of Everett, Wash., and Mr. Daniels, the retiring association president.

Only entertainment at the one-day business meeting was the presentation of six new motion pictures in a little theatre erected within the ballroom meeting place. These, however, also are devoted to usei of plywood and were protluced recently for showings to lumber dealers, architects, builders and farmers. The mbvies, all color and sound, separately depict plywood on the farm, the plywood fleet, prefabrication with plywood, finishing treatments for plywood, the manufacture of the panels and sales helps.

Housing for Sausalito

Plans and recommendations for housing to accommodate 5,000 of the 12,000 workers to be employed at the Bechtel shipyards now being constructed at Sausalito, Calif., have been forwarded to the U. S. Maritime Commission for approval.

The housing program includes 3,400 family housing units and 1,600 single men's units to be located within one mile from the plant gates. It also calls for 1,000 to 1,6@ Title VI homes to be built in the Southern Marin County area.

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Plan War Savings for Homc Savings, Foundation' Chairmen Urge

A "Victory home plan" for the renting family to apply to its War Savings, is suggested by the Northern and Southern California Homes Foundations, in reporting a preliminary study on post-war planning by the building industry.

This study, the Foundations say, has begun with a survey of the preparations being made in both America and England by public agencies and private industry groups, for the gigantic economic change that will follow victory by the United Nations, a change in which family war savings will be a vital force.

"Victory for the democracies will mean the survival of economic freedom for the American family," is the view of Bernard B. Barber and Orrie W' Hamilton, Foundation Chairmen. "This freedom is best tealized by the average citizen in home ownership. Freedom for his family to live in security and peace on its very own plot of American earth and under its orvn roof. The dawn of peace the everyday American visualizes is his own little light of garden and doorway, forever unclouded by foreign threat. Millions of these little lights will together make the glory of America's future.

"The building industry is planning for the leading part it must play in that future, even while it is breaking records in war constructioh. New designs, new construction methods, new building materials and tools, have been brought into being by the industry in its emergency drive to provide housing for the armed forces and for war-industry workers on schedule. These will serve the building needs of peace as well as they are meeting war demands.

"The FHA plan of family home financing has been strong1y impressed on renting families who have had rents raised again and again, while their neighbors with FHA-financed homes were paying a fixed rate per month for home ownership.

"Investment in War Savings Bonds and Stamps is a pa-