1 66 Miracles Ahead! 



Plastic Bearings 



Scores of plastics have set records for toughness and ver- 

 satility as "pinch hitters" for metal. Westinghouse has a lami- 

 nated plastic, Micarta, which is used for the bearings of 

 propeller shafts. A fifty-pound Micarta roll neck on a giant 

 rotating roll supports a million-pound load. One airplane 

 engine company saves one hundred thousand pounds of alu- 

 minum a month by substituting phenolic-plastic engine parts. 

 These parts can be molded in one operation, instead of the 

 five steps it took to make them from aluminum. A tough 

 ethyl-cellulose plastic is used in making dies, jigs, and form- 

 ing blocks for the fabrication of plane parts, thereby replacing 

 scarce metals and speeding up production. It should be inval- 

 uable in making low-cost fight planes. Three parts of the sixty- 

 millimeter trench-mortar fuse are made of thermosetting plas- 

 tic, which saves a pound of aluminum for each projectile. 



Achieving the Impossible 



"If you don't see what you want, ask for it," says the clerk 

 in the secondhand store. 



The chemical industry has given this sales talk a newer and 

 better twist: "If you don't see what you want, ask for it. If 

 we don't have it, we'll make it for you." 



Since December 7, 1941, our armed forces have been ask- 

 ing for a lot of things, and the chemical industry has deliv- 

 ered the goods ahead of schedule. 



It has worked overtime increasing the production of high- 

 octane gasoline for planes; synthetic rubber for the wheels of 

 our mechanized forces; TNT for bombs; chemicals for pro- 

 tective coatings for military equipment; oils and fatty acids 

 for lubrication and coatings; coal-tar derivatives, such as sulfa 

 drugs, for medicinal purposes; dehydrated, compressed foods 



