Tin Can Cellini

Pipe-sucking Oscar Bruno Bach began his career in Germany. At the age of 18 he made a wrought-metal Bible cover for Pope Leo XIII. He came to America 26 years ago, set up shop in Manhattan as a metal craftsman and industrial designer. Turning out Renaissance church doors, table lamps, fruit bowls, salt shakers and a streamlined typewriter, he inspired publicity agents to call him "the American Cellini."

Last year Oscar Bach announced he had hit upon a process for coloring tough, corrosion-resistant 18-8 (18% chromium, 8% nickel) stainless steel. In the Bachite process, the steel is first "pickled" (cleaned with acid), then coated in a chemical bath and heated. Depending on the degree of baking, the coated steel turns black, gold, bronze, purple, blue, red or green, the color becoming an integral part of the surface. Oscar Bach will not reveal the chemicals in the coating bath. "The formula," says he, "is so simple I'm almost ashamed of it." The Bachite process is used in the building industry for exteriors and decorations. A recent example is the flashy Bach-designed decoration of Manhattan's Airlines Terminal Building.

As Oscar Bach began working with less expensive iron & steel alloys, he found to his surprise that his coloring process immensely improved corrosion resistance. Last week the "American Cellini's" researches led him to the threshold of National Defense. He announced a process for Bachiting cheap black plate iron (3-c- per lb.), which, he claims, makes the metal a substitute for tin plate. Tin is important in tin cans because it resists corrosion by food acids. Bachited iron, said Bach, had a corrosion resistance against "most corrosive agents" higher than that of tin plate ( 5-c- per lb.) or 18-8stainless steel (34-c- per lb.). He estimated his process would be a third cheaper than tinning.

Of the 75,000 tons of tin it uses annually, the U. S. produces almost none, imports over 75% from the vulnerable Netherlands East Indies and British Malaya. Building a tin stockpile against emergency is one of the Defense Commission's most frantic concerns. Last week Oscar Bach offered his tin substitute to the War Department. He has also aroused interest in thrifty great A. & P. Tea Co. Besides containers for Army food, Bach foresaw another use for Bachited black iron: a building material easily adapted to prefabricated dwellings, barracks.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.