A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1371 



GLUING 



The development of a cheap glue that will be as strong, as reliable, 

 and as permanent as the wood itself will enormously expand the 

 opportunities in the economical and profitable use of wood. The 

 glues thus far developed by research from blood, animal tissue, casein, 

 vegetable proteins, and phenolic resins are excellent in many ways 

 and a great improvement over those available in the past. As yet, 

 however, they all fall short of the ideal in several respects. Today 

 the woodworker takes great pains to dry his lumber carefully and to 

 bring it to the proper moisture content for gluing with minimum 

 trouble. Then, with most of the glues available, much of this tedious 

 work is undone by putting back into the wood a large amount of 

 water along with the glue. Not only must time be taken to dry the 

 wood again, but many perplexing difficulties of woodworking arise 

 from the sweeling and shrinking of fine surfaces and carefully made 

 glue joints owing to glue moisture changes. Glues that contain no 

 water are being developed. The active aid of research is needed to 

 make them cheaper, better, and more generally adaptable to all kinds 

 of gluing. 



DESIGN OF FABRICATED PRODUCTS 



The most efficient design of shipping containers is handicapped 

 because of lack of specific knowledge of the hazards of transportation. 

 The work of the Forest Products Laboratory in the design of wooden 

 boxes and crates has been largely instrumental in bringing American 

 containers and packing methods from recognized inferiority to 

 recognized superiority and in reducing freight damage claims by 

 millions of dollars annually. But this is not sufficient. Further 

 study and surveys are necessary to determine the nature and causes 

 of damage to containers and their contents in both domestic and 

 export shipment and to translate the needs of shippers into terms of 

 wood. properties. The importance of this work is measured by the 

 present consumption of wood in shipping containers, which takes one 

 sixth of our lumber cut and a large and increasing proportion of our 

 pulp production. 



In the same way as for boxes and crates, the available data on 

 wood properties should be applied to the fundamental design problems 

 of other fabricated wood products. To almost every manufacturing 

 industry using wood, a more perfect knowledge of the material and 

 its properties and better means of turning its properties to account 

 in service would conduce to improved wood products and markets. 

 In the auto-body industry, for example, keener selection and evalua- 

 tion of wood for posts, sills, and rails would avoid defects of weakness 

 and brashness now sometimes encountered, would perhaps extend the 

 range of usable species, and would retain the elastic riding qualities 

 of wood coachwork, while suitable preservative treatment would 

 eliminate the decay hazard, and better gluing and jointing would 

 guarantee strength and long service life. Wood is and has been 

 used in thousands of manufactures, from barrel staves to Pullman 

 interiors, but its supremacy for these uses is by no means permanent 

 or assured. To maintain or increase the market for wood obviously 

 calls for more competent technical knowledge of the material and 

 better use of that knowledge by the designer. 



