December 25, 1917 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



25 



War Creates New Demand for Veneer 



Address by B. W. Lord Before the National Veneer and Panel Manufacturers' 



Association, December II, 1917* 



W£ ARE AT WAR with the greatest military organ- 

 ization the world has ever known and we are in 

 very serious war — how serious no one of us has 

 the least conception. As President Wilson stated in his 

 message to Congress, the first thing we must all consider 

 is to win the war and take up other matters afterward. 



This war game is the greatest game that has ever been 

 played, and if any of you gentlemen wish to realize what 

 it means, you should spend some time in Washington 

 and see what the government is doing to organize, sys- 

 tematize and equip along every possible line of offense 

 and defense, and the tremendous army of business men 

 who are giving their time and their efforts, absolutely 

 unselfish, to help the government in this crisis. 



One of the best posted men in Washington stated to 

 me last week that the two matters which the different 

 war boards consider of the greatest importance and the 

 greatest necessity are the immediate construction of our 

 merchant marine and the immediate construction and 

 equipment of our air fighting forces. 



The training of our aviators amounts to nothing unless 

 they are supplied with enough and p-operly equipped 

 battleplanes, and these battleplanes mean a large amount 

 of veneer and panels. Howf large that amount is no one 

 seems to know, but I want to give you a few reports 

 which I have heard and I want to give them to you without 

 any authentic basis for these statements. 



It is reported that the government has placed orders 

 for 22,000 battleplanes and these are to be followed 

 with orders for 75,000 more. 



From a prominent business man who is giving his 

 time and is going to France to serve the country in the 

 assembling of airplanes, I received the information that 

 one plant was being constructed and equipped for the 

 building of the Liberty motor and they were equipping 

 their plant for a capacity of 500 motors per day. 



TTie government recently placed an order for a million 

 and a half feet of panels for 3,000 airplanes, which 

 figures about 500 feet of panels to the plane, so that 

 if these Liberty motors were all used for airplanes, it 

 would require about 250,000 feet of panels per day to 

 build planes for the motors. 



In addition to the battleplanes that our own country 

 requires, England and France are depending largely upon 

 this country for their supply of veneer and panels for 

 the construction of their planes, so that the amount of 

 material that the veneer mills and panel mills would be 



*The war service committee suggested by Mr. Lord was created 

 and means for the financing of its work were provided in the 

 session. 



called upon to supply for the war work would be very 

 great indeed. 



ADDITIONAL MATERIAL NEEDED 



In addition to the airplanes, there will be a large num- 

 ber of hydroplanes required, which come under the 

 Navy Department. Then, in addition to these, a large 

 amount of material is required for storage battery sepa- 

 rators for batteries of all kinds; not only for motor vehi- 

 cles, submarines, field batteries, but for every other pur- 

 pose. Then there is material used for high-powered 

 switches, and panels used for engine beds, and undoubt- 

 edly there will be a great many other purposes for which 

 veneer and panels will be required. 



TTiere is considerable talk of using a three-ply case for 

 munition boxes on account of having to ship our stock 

 across the water and such a great distance, and if the 

 government shall use built-up stock for boxes, the amount 

 required will be tremendous. 



There has been a very large use of built-up stock for 

 diaphragms in shell boxes. The English shell box is 

 made with diaphragms for holding the shells. These 



boxes contain four shells the shells put in with the points 



down, and three diaphragms — one at the bottom, one 

 at the top, one about the middle. Diaphragms are about 

 9 inches square with four holes. 



In the Russian shell box and the French shell box the 

 shells are packed either two layers of four or three 

 layers of three, the shells lying horizontal and kept sepa- 

 rate by a system of blocks and wedges. 



As to the American shell box, evidently the fiber box 

 people got busy and had the specifications call for each 

 shell to be in a fiber container and the shells carried 

 horizontally, but some shells that were to be stored and 

 not used soon were to be encased in tin hermetically 

 sealed. 



If the veneer people were properly organized and 

 properly represented, they should have the merits of the 

 diaphragm box as adopted by the English war board 

 thoroughly investigated and tried out, and properly 

 brought before the proper board. 



BIDS ARE FEW 



While in Washington last week Mr. Young and I called 

 at the signal corps department and they showed us an 

 order for 1,500,000 feet of panels that they had re- 

 cently placed, and they had very few bidders and they 

 did not know whom to to go to secure this material. 



In calling upon the British munition board they showed 

 me an order for 12,000,000 feet of rotary veneer that 

 they wished to place. They had only one bid on it and 



