Tools from Rust

The burgeoning plastic-metals industry had another achievement to report last week. Hefty Andy Langhammer, head of Chrysler's Amplex Division, announced that his workmen were making tool steel from soft iron rust.

Hard enough to scratch glass, the steel is already used in micrometer parts and V-blocks--superaccurate gauges used in precision tooling. But plastic-metals men thought they could see many another possible use ahead, went on with their research.

Once limited to small shapes (like porous oil-filled bearings for automobile springs), plastic metals are now molded into thousands of parts, from tiny bearings (1/64th oz.) to big pieces (65 lb.). that replace castings on medium tanks. Powdered metals, molded to shape with heat and pressure, need little machining or finishing, save time as well as bronze, aluminum and other scarce metals.

Langhammer estimates that plastic methods give his 500 Amplex workers the output of 35,000 men using old methods. On V-blocks alone he expects to turn out more (in the rough) than all the other toolmakers together can produce in a year by machining them from solid steel.

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