Weyerhqeuser Mqkes Ply-Veneer With Monsqnto Adhesives

(From the Monsonto Mogozine

The marriage of wood and paper which took place more than four years ago in alert research and development brains in the Pacific Northwest has produced a lusty progeny. The offspring of the union already has caused a stir in the multimillion-dollar packaging industry where it neatly plugs the interval between fiber ,cartons and wooden boxes.

Weyerhaeuser Timber Company performed the wedding ceremony in its Longview, Wash., development center. The company has christened the resultant stripling, a sprig ofi the lordly Douglas fir family tree, Ply-Veneer. Weyerhaeuser has nation-wide hopes for it.

Ply-Veneer is a wood and paper sandwich. A fir veneer, mechanically distended and routed along the lines where it will be folded, has kraft container-board, made of fir chips, glued to each side. With this newly-developed material, Weyerhaeuser can form boxes, drums, cylinders and panel stock. They can be shipped and stored flat, printed on and handled easily, thrust into cold storage and r,valloped on the corners.

As Weyerhaeuser puts it, "Ply-Veneer has all the advantages of wooden boxes and of corrugated fiber cartons without perpetuating some of their disadvantages." That is to say: While the material is stiff and resists crushing like wood, it's light, tough and smooth like fiber.

Ten days of alternate soaking and drying tested the permanence of the bond between paper and wood. PlyVeneer, put together with a moisture-resistant Monsanto adhesive, emerged from the ordeal without delamination, edge splitting, rupture, wrinkling or warping.

Although an eight-inch Ply-Veneer container 24 by 12 by 12 inches weighed half as much as a competitive box of the same size, it proved twice as stout in "corner-drop" tests. In diagonal compression tests Ply-Veneer proved to be three to four times as rigid as the other box.

Weyerhaeuser tailors Ply-Veneer to fit the product that customers want to package: fruits and vegetables, meat and meat produ,cts, metal and plastic parts, ammunition

of Monsonto Chemicol Co.)

and explosives, butter and cheese. The containers arrive knocked down and users can put thern together by taping, banding, stapling or nailing.

Veneer in the Ply-Veneer sandn'ich can be a tenth, an eighth or three-sixteenths of an inch thick. The paper facing can be made of 42- or 9O-pound kraft on both sides or 42-pound on one side and 90-pound on the other side.

Wooden end cleats make some types of cartons stronger and easier to handle. To help hold the nailed cleats Weyerhaeuser inserts steel straps under the outer layer of containerboard.

The wooden cleats, in,cidentally, show to what extent Weyerhaeuser has been able to utilize the output of its various mills in a single product. The cleats come from the box-shook plant of Weyerhaeuser's Klamath Falls, Ore., Branch. The veneer comes from the Lumber Division's new plywood plant at Springfield, Oregon. The paper comes from the Pulp Division at Springfield.

All three-cleats, veneer and containerboard-meet at Springfield, where a section of the plywood plant is given over to Ply-Veneer manufacture. This is the first time that products of the Weyerhaeuser Pulp and Lumber Divisions unite at the same plant to form a product.

It looks like a happy combination.

Hoyword Absorbs Pqso Robles Yord

The Homer T. Hayward Lumber Company, of Paso Robles, California, has recently absorbed its affiliate concern, the Paso Robles Lumber Company, and has moved to the plant and offices of the latter concern at 944 Pine Street. The merger was made necessary because their old Riverside Street plant is being taken over by the new Highway 101 Freeway, which is being routed through that area. John Fisher, manager of the Hayward yard is manager of the merged operation, assisted by Bud Thorndyke and Rod Gamble.