Louis L. Stott
Polymer Corporation
Inducted 1977
Lewis Stott (1906 – 1964) was an American engineer and entrepreneur. He was among the first to recognize nylon as an important industrial material. As founder and president of the Polymer Corporation, he produced nylon in the same semi-finished forms and shapes customarily made with metals.
Stott’s formal education was in the arts and business. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1928 and attended the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He acquired his knowledge of plastics technology through extensive outside reading and study.
Mr. Stott worked in various capacities at the Beryllium Corporation of Reading, PA, from 1932 to 1942, including vice president of operations. He developed several beryllium innovations, including several related to plastics manufacturing. He and several associates then launched Atlantic Plastics in Queens, N.Y., and the Polymer Corporation in Reading, PA. Polymer Corporation supplied extruded nylon and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and cast semi-finished plastic shapes for industrial use. They also produced nylon molding powders, ferromagnetic plastic materials, and powders for plastic coating.
A prolific inventor, Stott was granted 25 U.S. patents on new plastic materials and plastics processing techniques. He invented the first practical method of extruding nylon resin into stock shapes, leading to the widespread industry use of this unique wear-resistant material. He introduced centrifugal casting and sintering techniques to the plastics industry. He also developed a cost-effective casting method for producing massive nylon shapes for heavy industrial use. In 1958, he developed and patented a sintered nylon formulation containing polytetrafluoroethylene particles, creating a material with both outstanding wear resistance and a very low coefficient of friction.
One of his colleagues described Lewis Stott “as a practical inventor with a flair for correlating technical facts with market needs.” He grew his company, Polymer Corporation, from a garage operation to a multi-million dollar business with multiple plants in the U.S. and abroad.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastic processing, Plastic materials