They've Been Shipping a Lot of Plywood!

There was cause for a special celebration recently at the W'illamette Valley Lumber Company plant at Dallas, Ore. It was the occasion of the shipping oI the lr/+ billionth {oot of Teco-Tested plywood by Willamette and four other associated plants in less than a four-year period.

One and one-quarter billion feet of plywood, figured on a 3/g-inch basis, is a lot of plywood any way you figure it. If the panels were laid end to end, it would be a continuous strip of more than 60,000 miles. This would make quite a wooden walk into outer space, if scientists could find some way to support it.

Other plants which help turn out this large production of Teco-Tested plywood are the S-illamette National Lumber Company, also of Dallas; Western Veneer & Plywood Company, Albany, Ore., and Santiam Lumber Company, with plants at Sweet Home and Lebanon, Ore.

The five plants are producing about 600 cars of Teco-Tested plywood monthly, or an average of 30 a day.

Four years ago this fall, the "TecoTested" quality control process was inaugurated. At that time this group of plywood mills felt the need for a day-to-day inplant grading and testing service by an independent organization. Timber Engineering Company, W'ashington, D.C., performs testing procedures in accordance with FHA to assure compliance with its standards. Teco technicians are stationed at each plant.

The technicians are employees of Teco and are occasionally shifted from plant to plant. The manufacturer also knows that tests are being made continually at his plant.

Since the inauguration of the program, Teco has established a regional laboratory at Corvallis, Ore., and other West Coast softwood plywood plants have joined in the program. The coveted Teco grade stamp, earned only after passing rigid inspection, now appears annually on upwards to l0 million feet of plywood. I