New Day A-dawning

The age of light metals is still far off. But last week there were new and gleaming heralds of its approach.

The Aluminum Co. of America announced that it has commissioned Manhattan's George G. Sharp & Co. to design a 7,780-ton, all-aluminum vessel; Manhattan's Gibbs & Cox, Inc., who designed the Liberty ships, will draw plans for a 10,280 tonner. Alcoa will build the one it likes, use it to haul bauxite from its mines in Moengo and Paranam, Dutch Guiana, to the U.S. for processing. But the primary purpose is to open up a vast new market for aluminum. Alcoa already has its foot in this door.

American President Lines, Ltd. is having two 608-ft., 585-passenger liners built with aluminum superstructures, using 98,877 pounds of aluminum; massive (60-ft.) smokestacks on three passenger vessels being built for the Mississippi Shipping Co. will be of aluminum.

Hollywood Pin-Up. In going after the big buyers, Alcoa was not neglecting little markets. Typical was the "Hollywood Pin-Up," an aluminum clothespin. Its inventors were two neighbors in Van Nuys, Calif., who got tired of hearing their wives grumble about ersatz clothespins. Alcoa helped them perfect the pin, licensed them to use its color process, "Alumilite," at a nominal royalty. Del E. Webb, contractor and co-owner of the New York Yankees, financed them. Last week, the Del E. Webb Products Co. was busy shipping out 80,000 pins a day, expects to use 2,500,000 pounds of aluminum a year.

Needed: 300 More. Magnesium, Alcoa's competitor for light-metal markets, was not far behind. Dow Chemical's white-haired president, Dr. Willard Herbert Dow, had a showcase of 23 magnesium items ready for the market. Among them:

P: A 12 1/2-lb. wheelbarrow.

P: Chicago's Atlas Tool & Engine Co. is making cigaret lighters.

P: In Saginaw, Mich., L. Richmond & Sons is making a 16 1/2-ft., 60-lb. canoe.

P: Dow Chemical will put out an unsinkable 12-ft., 70-lb. rowboat this spring. Also ready for production: a portable typewriter and an outboard motor.

This help for small businessmen on the part of Alcoa and Dow Chemical was not all pure altruism. They were both uncomfortably aware of the $1 billion in U.S.-owned aluminum and magnesium plants, and, in particular, the talk of government subsidies to keep the aluminum plants competing with Alcoa. To Alcoa's mind this talk could best be silenced by creating a demand big enough to use all the metal the plants could turn out. It could turn the trick, if it could find a few hundred gadgets like its clothespin.

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