Pyro Plastics Founder Dies

[dratomic]

I took this from the New York Times. I don't think they'll sue...

(Background: Pyro Plastics has made some of the neatest plastic space toys ever, including the Pyrotomic Disintegrator pistols and various rockets and space ships. Pyro often sold molds to Tudor Rose, a British toy company. Blast Off has a lot of interesting things to say on the subject.)

William Lester, Innovator in the Plastics Industry, Dies at 97

By JENNIFER BAYOT

Published: March 16, 2005

William M. Lester, who revolutionized the plastics industry 70 years ago with his design for an automatic molding machine, died on Saturday at his home in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 97.

The cause was injuries suffered as a result of a fall, said his wife, Gloria Genin Lester.

A mechanical engineer, Mr. Lester took 10 weeks in 1935 to build what became known as the Lester machine. Based on a longstanding method for shaping rubber, it injected melted plastic into a cavity formed by engraved metal slabs that joined together, much like a waffle maker. Using hydraulics, his device applied thousands of pounds of pressure to shape the plastic in seconds.

Other so-called injection machines existed, but they were smaller and were often cranked by hand. They could take several minutes to create a mold, while Mr. Lester's machine could finish in as few as six seconds.

With rubber supply lines blocked during World War II, Mr. Lester's innovation took on crucial significance and helped place the nascent plastics industry at the forefront of American manufacturing.

As a partner in Commonwealth Plastics in Leominster, Mass., Mr. Lester sold his machine to plants across the country, and companies abroad soon adopted his design as well. Sixty years later, injection molding remains one of two primary ways of producing plastic products. (The other is extrusion, generally used for large or lengthy objects like wires.)

"It just started an immense industry," said John Kretzschmar, chairman of the Plastics Academy, a consortium of professional groups, noting that many products are injection-molded. "There are your car parts, your appliances, your pens, your snow shovels. You know, combs used to be made of deer horn."

A son of a blacksmith, Mr. Lester was still in school when he started designing molds and casting machines. A few years after college, he started the Lester Tool and Die Company in Cleveland with his father. There he designed molds and created devices to simplify their making, obtaining at least six patents for his work. He also licensed his design for die-casting machines to the Reed-Prentice Company, a leading supplier of such machines.

In 1939, he founded the Pyro Plastics Corporation with his first wife, Betty, who died in 1993. The company became a leading producer of custom-made parts for producing injection-molded plastics. After selling Pyro Plastics in 1972, he turned his attention to packaging that would prevent tampering or show evidence of any that occurred.

In his career, Mr. Lester obtained at least 20 patents for designs like a "dispensing closure" for squeezable containers and a rotary internal combustion engine.

William Morris Lester was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 14, 1908, to immigrants from Russia. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1928 from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he revived a Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, after being excluded by other campus groups.

He was a founder of the American Technion Society, which supports a technological institute in Israel, and he led the formation of the U.S.-Israel Plastics Corporation in Holon, Israel, which produced irrigation supplies.

In addition to his wife, Gloria, he is survived by a son, Kenneth, of Media, Pa.; a daughter, Gay Gertz, of Atlanta; a sister, Phyllis Sloane, of Santa Fe, N.M.; three stepchildren, Paul Genin, of Boynton Beach, Fla.; Richard Genin, of New Rochelle, N.Y.; and Robin Epstein of Boca Raton, Fla.; and two grandchildren.

[Joe K.]

And, from Bill Hanlon's book, Plastic Toys - Dimestore Dreams of the '40s & '50s, Schiffer Publishing, 1993, page 210:

"The name PYRO comes from the Greek word pyr, which means fire. The Lester's interpretation was that molded plastic objects were formed by fire (heat)."

[Rocket]

I fired my Pyrotomic Disintegrator pistol a few times tonight in honor of old Mr. Lester... God rest his soul.

Rocket -[O_O]-

[toyboy]

Thanks Dr A for sharing the news...

That was very informative.

I will always appreciate my plastic ray guns even more now, and forever remember Mr Lesters innovative contribution to our wonderful collecting experience!