Fifty years ago in Plastics Technology: February 1955.

Letters to the Editor

There is not only ample room for another plastics periodical, but also a vital need for a technical journal of this kind.

D.A. Dearle, Manager, Plastics Div. North & Judd Manufacturing Co., New Britain, Conn.

Gain in Resin Production Predicted for 1955

Production last year was about 1,357,000 tons, or 3% below the record total of 1953. SPI expects output in 1955 to reach a new high of 1,424,500 tons, and the total value of all finished plastics products to rise to $1,425 million. Among products earmarked as good business prospects this year are vacuum formed parts, styrene wall tile, piping, reinforced plastics, and film and sheeting. (Note: U.S. resin production in 2003 was 53.7 million tons, valued at around $51.23 billion.)

New Fields to Conquer: The Future Outlook

It is probably now recognized by everyone in the plastics molding industries that our most important task is to speed up fabrication operations. The plastic age will not truly have arrived until we can turn out plastic articles as fast as a metal stamping press knocks out stampings. The time barrier represents the limits imposed by present time cycles which depend, to a large extent, on time lags in heating and cooling.

Oldsmobile's Delta Features Reinforced Plastic Body

The experimental Delta, a four-passenger coupe manufactured by Oldsmobile Division, General Motors Corp., Lansing, Mich., made its debut to the motoring public in the recent General Motors Motorama at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City. Featuring a fiberglass-reinforced plastic body, except for the brushed-aluminum roof, and wide-set oval recessed headlight housings, duel fuel tanks, front seats that swivel for easy entry, and cast-aluminum wheels, the Delta stands 53 inches high, has a 120-inch wheelbase, and an overall length of 201 inches.

New Fields Open to Vinyls

New developments in the field of plastics rank among the more significant 1954 achievements of the B.E Goodrich Chemical Co., J.R. Hoover, the company's president, disclosed in a year-end statement.

He further added that high-impact rigid Geon vinyl resins can now be stamped out on conventional metal stamping machines, thereby opening the field to metalworking manufacturers and bringing plastics into direct competition with such established materials as wood, steel, glass, aluminum, and copper. This relatively simple and rapid forming process makes it economically feasible to use rigid vinyl in the building industry for siding, roofing, pipe and tubing, window frames, molding, baseboards, wainscoting, and paneling.

Plastics Enrollment High

Enrollment in the new series of Plastics Courses offered by Newark College of Engineering, Newark, N.J., has been so great that four additional sections have been added to the two originally scheduled. The two courses, one on Injection Moldings and the other on Compression Moldings, show a registration of 90 executives and workers in the plastics industry from 29 companies in the northern New Jersey metropolitan area.

Reinforced Plastic Truck Body Proves a Success in Road Tests

First reports of the eight-week trial period in which truck #47226 of the United Parcel Service delivery fleet underwent vigorous road testing revealed that the operators who had the opportunity to drive it unanimously commended its overall performance and appearance. The first delivery truck to have an all-plastics body, #47226 was molded by Lunn Industries, Huntington Station, N.Y., from 19 parts made of fibrous glass mat impregnated with Barrett's Plaskon polyester resins.