The primary commercial uses for Bakelite today remain in the area of inexpensive board and tabletop games produced in China, India and Hong Kong. Items such as billiard balls, dominoes and pieces for games like chess, checkers, and backgammon are constructed of Bakelite for its look, durability, fine polish, weight, and sound. Common dice are sometimes made of Bakelite for weight and sound, but the majority are made of a thermoplastic such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) which is not as durable as Bakelite.
Bakelite is used to make the presentation boxes of Breitling watches and sometimes as a substitute for metal firearm magazines. Bakelite is also used in the mounting of metal samples in metallography.[9]
Phenolic resins have been commonly used in ablative heat shields. Soviet heatshields for ICBM warheads and spacecraft reentry consisted of asbestos textolite impregnated with Bakelite.[10]