Passing Comments B OOK reviews are hardly a main feature of
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The Commercial Motor, but copies of most of the works dealing with matters within our scope are submitted to us and critically "noted." It would seem, however, that our services in this respect are valued so highly by authors or publishers, that the limitations imposed by the specialized character of our paper are not allowed to constitute a deterrent. Not long ago, we received a copy of a new book called, "Weeds Weeds Weeds," by Sir Charles Vernon Boys, LL.D., F.R.S., published by Wightman and Co., Ltd., and costing Is. The author, among other big achievements, has produced a work on logarithms, and, being an amateur gardener, wrote " Weeds " as a diversion. We know there are among our readers many with similar interests, and if they be troubled by docks, thistles, nettles or any others of the legion that grey gardeners' hair, they will find among its unique and delightfully written contents help and consolation from the pen of an able man.
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Book for Gardeners, but Not Concerned with Agrimotors .
Why Use Rivets to NAANY a mechanic, when Attach Brake shoe IVI refacing a brake shoe,
Facings must have thought to himself :
"Surely all these rivets are unnecessary, when the fabric is being tightly pressed against the shoe by the brake drum and the only tendency is for the facing to turn with the drum." The reasoning is sound, for the friction between the shoe and the facing is little, if any, less than that between the _facing and the drum. Possibly a similar thought, together with an appreciation of the advantages resulting from the elimination of rivets, prompted Transport Brakes, Ltd., in the development of its new rivetless facing. In this case, there is a slotted steel strip, on to which the fabric is woven, the whole being compressed, under heat, to form a unit. Refacing a shoe involves simply the attachment of the steel strip to the shoe by four small bolts. We carried out a simple test with a hammer and chisel and found that the two elements were strongly united. The scheme permits all the fabric to be worn away before refacing, and much simplifies this operation.
Italy's Extensive RoadTHE Goverment of Italy has building Plan for I drawn up plans for con
-Ethiopia . . . structing new roads in Ethiopia
amounting to a total length of 4,600 kiloms. (approximately 3,000 miles). The class of road which is being constructed in the conquered territory is well indicated by the accompanying illustration. There is little doubt that with such wonderful roads Ethiopia will develop rapidly.
SD/CE early days, there has 1--/been no marked development in ignition systems, with the exception of the change from magneto to coil. Detail improvements have, of course, been effected constantly to magnetos, coils, contact-breakers, distributors, condensers and plugs, but, basically, the systems are as they were 30 years ago. The rule for sparking-plug gaps has always been about 0.02 in. Now we suddenly find a tendency-to intensify the igniting qualities of the spark by increasing the gap—in some cases to 0.04 in. It is a conse
A Tendency Towards Long-spark-gap Ignition Systems . quence of efforts to raise efficiency and economy, which have been made possible largely by better materials and cooling systems. In two works we have visited lately we have found experiments going on in this direction,