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Show LAMINATED WOOD IS SUPERIOR FOR BATS Forest Service Is Making Most Interesting Experiments. Not Certain, However, That Clubs Will Satisfy Critical Demands of Professional Pro-fessional Players Some Broken in Trials. The present-day penchant of manufacturers manu-facturers and others for substitutes threatens even those trusted baseball !ats to which every big league hitter 'ooks to perpetuate his fame. The for-;st for-;st products laboratory of the forest tervice, United States department of lgriculture, has recently been manu-acturing manu-acturing experimentally a number of aminated wood articles with the idea if utilizing small lumber stocks. Base-jall Base-jall bats are among the articles which Save been experimented on. In prac-.ically prac-.ically every instance the products aade from this material have given is good service as those made in the egular way. Whether they would sat-sfy sat-sfy the critical demands of profes-ilonals profes-ilonals who inspect, their white ash Ilubs with zealous care, is a matter is yet undetermined. The fact remains, re-mains, however, that the initial success suc-cess in the experiments cited seem to Indicate that there is a large field heretofore undeveloped in which laminated lamin-ated wood can be used successfully. Attention Is called to the fact that, while some of the bats have broken under severe usage, the breaks were not in the glued joints, indicating that the artificial joining has been accomplished accom-plished in an entirely satisfactory manner. man-ner. Shoe lasts were also made of laminated lam-inated wood and after undergoing the severest usage in various factories are still serviceable. Hat blocks of a similarly sim-ilarly built-up material were tried out thoroughly and proved very satisfactory. satisfac-tory. Recently constructed specimens of wagon bolsters which were made up with laminations carefully joined just before gluing are standing weather weath-er tests well. A wagon company is giving these articles a trial. |