LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
Page 13
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The Electro-Plating of Worn Parts. Tales from Returned Travellers.
UNLESS ONE HAS IIA_D a . first-hand opportunity to inspect the activities of some of the larger M.T. units in France and elsewhere, it is 'very difficult indeed to realize the exceptional amount of first-class work of an unusual and novel character that was initiated and prosecuted by their skilled personnel. Particularly in the early days of the late war, the circumstances were, of course, altogether ezeeptional which confronted the men who had cheerfully undertaken to become responsible for the maintenance of the Army M.T. fleets overseas. Iti a way, they may fitly be compared with tke circumstances surrounding the heroio-struggles of that handful of engineers who attempted the impossible by trying to maintain regular motorbus services, in the days of the first boom, with machines that were entirely unsuited to the job and in the absence of anything in the nature of spare-part stock.
Unless one had first-hand informatio quate conjecture as to the very remarkab dertaken in M.T. base workshops parti well-nigh impossible. The principal fa called into play the most remarkable or method were the.hopeless inadequacy of , any adee work unularly was tors which ginality of equipment, the terrible aerionsness of the problem of maintaining the fleets in active service, and then, beyond all, the existence of a personnel recruited from the four eorriers of the earth and, fortunately, not confined to men who knew the motor-vehicle industry and that industry only. The tales that have been told of homemade foundries and forges, of electric-light plant contrived out of nearly nothing in Gallipoli, of processes and methods -unblessed by text-book authority, would make wonderful reading in book form.
The writer was fortunate enough recently to he associated with some of the men who performed these miracles, and he learned of the most wonderful tales of making do—and particularlykdid this happen at the Fourth Heavy RepairtShop not far from Rouen. Just a few lines, as an example may usefully be devoted to the record of the practical employment of electro-deposition in connection with the'reconditioning of numerous worn partsincluding stub axles, ball races, hub shells and gearshafts, of the reasonably early replacement of which there was no possible ohance.
The process was not a new one, of course, hut its application on a commercial scale to the making good of worn parts, with complete satisfaction, is, within the writer's memory at any rate, quite novel. It was the only way out and, at first, appealed to the originators as a forlorn hope a last-line experiment. By sheer doggedness, coupled with technical ability of a high order, the electro-deposit of iron that could be ease-hardened was established as a practical and commercial process. It is one about which as much should be known, for instance, as of welding.
The eleetro-deposition of iron had been employed is a practical process Years before the war, and, particularly, by process-block makers who for many years electrically deposited a. film of iron on the copper faces of the half-tone blocks with a view to prolonging their life. On the Continent, too, the same process was suceessfully used on a considerable scale for the actual manufacture of iron pipes, etc. From 1916 onwards, the M.T. wprkshops in France. despairing of ever obtaining adequate supplies of " spares" from England, set to work in earnest to repair, by this process, thousands of worn pins, ball races and other parts, arid complete success attended their efforts.
In the first instance, it was thought necessary to deposit a preliminary skin of copper and then to follow this with the skin of iron, but, at a later stage, this foundation was dispensed with without evil effect. The iron deposit proved, after exhauitWe test, to have amalgamated very thoroughly with the original surface and, indeed, to have formed part and parcel withlit. As evidence of the success of the ultimate process that wea., developed, it was found that the iron skin:could be/quite satisfactorily casehaadened. Thousands ofi.:avorn components were repaired in this way not only successfully hut quickly, which'''wawall-important. The cost, too, proved to be remarkably low.
There is more tilan a purely war-time emergency use in this matter, surely. There should be a great deal of very prefita;ble work that could be undertaken by persons possessing the experience that was gained in this way and, indeed, the prospect of working the process on a very remunerative basis, now that " spares " are both difficult to obtain and superexpensive to pay for, is a very rosy one. If any reader of The Commercial Motor would care to go into the matter more closely any communication addressed to " Electroplate," care of The Editor, will gladly be forwarded to the proper quarter,
l'ales from Returned Travellers.
What wonderful tales are to be had for the seeking from those quiet sun-browned men in mufti hats and shoes and a thinly disguised British warm, that one meets in one's journeyings here and there about the country nowadays. Men are back now in harness from all four corners of the globe,and not a. few wonderful tales they can tell of mechanical transport, of Tanks, of caterpillars, of four-wh41 drives, of armoured cars and of the more common army lorry. It is not too easy to get them to talk, but it is worth the effort. On five consecutive long railway jo'Irrneys recently, I met first a man who had been dirigible ballooning, first in the Scillies and then in the Shetlands, the next a civilian but temporarily R.E., who had spent four years rebuilding bridges in France, and then another man who had been commander of the seaplane patrol from the Isle of Wight to Guernsey and Sark, who had flown the trip hundreds of times in the foulest of weather and who to this day has never taken his pilot's ticket. Then I ran into a youngster who was a line regiment private at 18, and the other day was demobbed as a major in the Tank Corps. And lastly, only a day or two ago, an oid Terrier, a crack shot, tied to one of the biggest musketry training camps in the country, training hundreds of instructors.
And all 'these men were full of praise for some one or other phase of motor lorry employment on national service, invariably introducing into their yarns, &loner or later, some tale of big-gun haulage, of convoy pluckiness, of supplies maintained to remotest seaplane stations, of caterpillar obstinacy and the way the French got over it, of Tank and tractor terrors. There is a wonderful tale of:transport to be had for the asking in almost any railway carriage just now.