George,

Interesting that you brought up "Atomic Wood". Up here, in the hinterlands of PA, there was a company that made hardwood flooring using this process. Off the top of my head, can't remember the name, but it was located about 35 miles north of where I live, in the Quehenna Wild Area and less than ten miles from our hunting camp.

Name of the company was "PermaGrain Products", and was located in a very remote area that was used by the AEC for atomic testing (WWII era). Later users of the reactor were Curtis Wright and then Piper Aircraft. PermaGrain came into the picture around 1977 or so and was licensed by the government to use a radiation process in their production procedures. In the era, they would infuse hardwood with an acrylic resin and then use radiation to cure the product. The process was subsequently changed and the reactor was deactivated, but I'm unsure if it was ever removed.

PermaGrain is still in business, although at different locations and, as I said, with a different method of infusing acrylic into wood. Interesting web searches would be "Quehenna Wild Area", with additions of nuclear reactor, PermaGrain, etc. Interesting period, too, in our country's history, when research was conducted without the strings of today (although, the upside is we are probably safer in not having fairly easily accessable reactors all over the country). In closing, I vaguely remember Penn State University also having something to do with the management of the site for a short period of time.

Again, as I previously said, the resin impregnation process has been around for quite a few years and in many different forms.

T.Z.