Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation
Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation
|
|
| Industry | manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Fate | sold off part by part |
| Founded | 1917 |
| Defunct | 1956 |
| Headquarters | Grand Rapids, Michigan |
|
Key people
|
George R. Meyercord, James R. Fitzpatrick, Emory W. Stoner |
| Products | plywood |
|
Number of employees
|
appx 1,000 |
Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation (1917–1956) was a conglomerate of many Michigan-based companies. It was located on Broadway Avenue in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They manufactured haskelite plywood for a wide variety of applications and vehicles of one type or another. Their office headquarters were in Chicago, Illinois.
Henry L. Haskell devised a way to make waterproof glue in 1913 from dried cow blood. With the use of this animal derivative turned into an adhesive he put together cross-grained thin veneer layers of wood and developed a product referred to as a flat sheet "panel" that is now referred to as plywood ("plies" of wood). The plywood was named after himself and known as haskelite. In 1915 he innovated a method to mold this plywood into three dimensional shapes using heat, hydraulic pressure and his patented waterproof glue.
This plywood was first manufactured at the Haskell Manufacturing Company in 1916 in Ludington, Michigan. It was used for various things including airplanes and flying boats. Sea sleds and the pontoons of hydro-airplanes were made of haskelite. The "panels" came in sizes up to seven and a half feet wide by fifty feet long. The thickness varied by the number of layers requested. The main offices of the company were in Chicago.
Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation was formed in the later part of 1917 as a spin-off from the Haskell Manufacturing Company in Ludington. Its main purpose was to fulfill World War I needs for mass production of the new plywood material invented by Haskell. The Ludington factory was producing less than 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of plywood per day, while the new Grand Rapids factory, with 1,000 men, was designed to produce up to 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of plywood per day. During World War I Haskell manufactured airplane bodies for the American, British, and French armies. There were over 5,000,000 square feet (460,000 m2) of haskelite plywood produced by 1918 for military airplanes.
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Wikipedia