Dr. Carl A. Zapffe, an internationally known physicist, engineer, chemist and metallurgist, as well as popular leader of Boy Scouts in North Baltimore, died of bone cancer at his home in the Ruxton area on Thursday. He was 82.
Dr. Zapffe's scientific accomplishments include the founding in the 1940s of fractography, the study of how materials fracture. He also discovered that hydrogen caused numerous defects in forged and cast steel.
He was an authority on stainless steel, and wrote eight books, four technical movies and 200 scientific papers, four of which received national awards. He received numerous grants from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
"He was interested in everything in the world," said his secretary of 28 years, Jeanne Griffith. "If he saw something . . . he'd question it and look into it. That's why he was a fascinating personality. Everything fascinated him."
The basement at Dr. Zapffe's estate near Ruxton served as his laboratory.
"He went into the scientific field because it was something his father thought he should do," said one of Dr. Zapffe's seven daughters, Christina Anderson, of Bozeman, Mont. Dr. Zapffe's father, Carl Zapffe, was a geologist who worked on the Northern Pacific Railroad, she said.
He attended Michigan Technological University, Lehigh University and Harvard. His degrees ranged from a master's in metallurgical engineering to an honorary doctorate of engineering from Michigan Technological University.
At age 13, he set a national Scouting record by qualifying as an Eagle Scout -- Scouting's top rank -- the same year he joined the troop.
Dr. Zapffe moved to Baltimore in 1944 and was chairman of the adult committee that led Troop 35, which met at the Church of the Redeemer in Homeland. Eleven years later, he became the troop's scoutmaster -- a job he continued for 39 years.
The 130-member Troop 35, which outnumbered the average 30- to 35-member troops elsewhere, may have produced more Eagle Scouts than any other in the country. A total of 234 boys from the troop have qualified for the Eagle rank -- and Dr. Zapffe required that his Eagles earn five more merit badges than the Boy Scouts of America required.
In March of this year, Troop 35 honored Dr. Zapffe. Many of his Eagles, now men in responsible jobs across the nation, came to Baltimore for the occasion.
Raymond Charles Weglein Jr., 34, a Troop 35 member from 1971 to 1978, said Dr. Zapffe redefined the Boy Scouts, which at one time was thought of by many as a baby-sitting organization. He created "Dad-Boy contracts" so parents would get involved with their sons, Mr. Weglein said.
"It's hard to put into words what I learned [from him]," Mr. Weglein said, adding that he became an assistant scoutmaster himself in 1980 because of Dr. Zapffe's leadership.
Dr. Zapffe said at one point, thinking back on his years in Scouting: "You can look at it philosophically and say the most important thing I did in my life was Scouting -- if I did [the boys] any good. But how do you measure something like that?"
Such was his love of Scouting that he will be buried in his scoutmaster uniform, and six of his former Scouts will be pallbearers.
Services were to be conducted at 3 p.m. today at the Church of Redeemer, 5603 N. Charles St. Burial will be in his hometown of Brainerd, Minn.
Dr. Zapffe is survived by his wife of 57 years, Denise duPont Zapffe; a son, Carl M. Zapffe, of Lake Bluff, Ill.; seven daughters, Denise Park, of Falls Church, Va., Jessie Zapffe, of Sedona, Ariz., Carlotta Tutor of Monkton, Barbara Vielma of Edinburg, Texas, Augusta Benavides of Austin, Texas, Elsie Verdeja of Albuquerque, N.M., and Christina Anderson, of Bozeman, Mont., and 33 grandchildren.