Too Much Bufld-Up

Plastics men. meeting last week in Hot Springs to discuss the role of their industry in defense, had a strange problem: their reputation was too good. Wherever a shortage has arisen--in aluminum, zinc, nickel--someone has stepped up to say that the nation would use plastics instead. Many a citizen, after watching a series of plastic miracles in fountain pens, steering wheels, etc.. has come to think of plastics as the national Handy Andy.

In 1929 the Census Bureau valued the industry's raw plastics production at $29,212,212. Since then its size has almost tripled despite the depression; at least one major new plastic has been introduced every year. Hundreds of plastic articles, from shoelace tips to dining-room furniture, are now sold in U.S. stores.

But there are some things even plastics can't do. Some of the cellulose acetates (used in steering wheels, etc.) are easily molded and hold their shape well under ordinary circumstances, but soften at high temperatures. Cellulose nitrate is highly inflammable. Caseins absorb water; some other types are dissolved by acids or alcohol. None--even the phenols which show most promise for heavy industry duty--has more than 6% of the ultimate strength of the toughest steel or 20% of the strength of toughest brass.

When rushed into new uses without proper advance research, plastics sometimes have failed as spectacularly as they have succeeded elsewhere. The War Department tried using a plastic for cups screwed into the nose of loaded shells to keep the TNT in place during storage; expansion of the TNT under temperature change broke the cup bottoms so that all the ammunition had to be broken down, unpacked and the cups removed. This kind of thing is bad for both defense and the plastics industry. Manufacturers' chief fear: if plastics are hurried into uses for which they are as yet unfit, they will become known as ersatz materials used only as a last resort.

Another problem is plant capacity. The U.S. produced 91,303 tons of plastics in 1939, will produce more than 100,000 tons this year. But even though a ton of plastics is equal in size to about two tons of aluminum or five to seven tons of zinc, this is still tiny production by comparison to the metals.

Right now expansion of plastics capacity is hampered by shortages of metals required for molds, and of such plastics raw materials as formaldehyde and methanol. Since the industry's basic raw materials are found everywhere (air, wood, coal, petroleum, soybeans, milk), it can eventually overcome any shortages; but it needs time for the job.

Already the industry is producing washing-machine parts and thermos-bottle caps which take the place of aluminum, refrigerator panels which take the place of steel. This week the Army tested a plastic fuse cap which may lead to other plastics ordnance items. But plastics men are wary of the too-enthusiastic demand. Said one manufacturer last week:

"We're like a zoo keeper with a lot of big and hungry animals to feed. Right now they're all asleep. If they wake up one at a time our job will be easy. If they all wake up at once we'll be in a hell of a fix."

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