TRACTOR ASSEMBLY IN LONDON.
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Erecting Whiting-Bull Tractors from Component Parts Shipped from America. Ten Machines Completed per Week.
FROM THE TIME that the food problem became an urgent one, and extensive cultivation of grass lands, together with the reclamation of waste land, ' was deemed to be vitally necessary, tractor manufacturers, as a whole, have put forth all their endeavours to produce in quantity sufficient. machines to bring under the plough an increasing amoun.t of land. Concentrated effort has been devoted, both in tliis country and in America, to the design and .production of tractors of different types to suit varying needs, .Undoubtedly the largest number of individual types have come from across the Atlantic.
In this 'way the manufacturers have served two purposes. ' In the first place they have rendered invaluable national assistance to meet an acute emergency, and, secondly, they have helped to stimulate interest in mechanical 'ploughing generally, The farming class, with-but few exceptions, aredecidedly conservative in their methods and inherently sceptical in their beliefs. Nothing short of practical results plus facts and figures affording conclusive evidence of the tractor's established utility will suffice to convince. In this -direction Whiting, Ltd., 324-340, Easton Road, London, N.W., have accomplished much. Since the -commencement of the war the company has imported from the .U.S.A. approximately one milliqn pounds worthOf various -agricultural-and other goods. During the past.' year alone they have received from the States 1000 tractors, 2500 ploughs (1500 of which were of the established Oliver product), 1000 drills, 1000 binders, in addition to a considerable stock of harrows (both tractor and horse), cultivators, manure ' spreaders and other such. like implements. On this miscellany of goods they-have paid about £80.000 for fre'ght and 225,000 for insurance, and a truly remarkable fact is that out of all these consig-nments only about £12,000 worth have been lost at sea.
The -company have only recently acquired premises ' at Lots Road, Chelsea,, S.W., where all consignments are now received from America. Some of the Whiting-Bull machines are received in a state of semi erection, whilst for others only the component parts are sent, which are assem
bled at the new workshops. We recently had an oppor
tunity of witnessing the erection of some of these machines. The practice in vogue in this new assembling shop is to lay out tractors in a series of ten under a travelling crane and to complete a number of consecutive operations throughout the batch. The erection of the Machine is divided into four operations. The first is to place in position frame,
big wheel and goose neck ; number two is to line up with jigs, dummy intermediate shaft, and babbit inter mediate shaft bearings ; the third operation is to .drop engine in frame and line up with jigs to the intermediate shaft, fitted • after the previous operation, thus ensuring perfect alignment, whilst the final operation, apart from the fitting of minor small parts to complete the machine, is to fix side bracket to take
cluteh shaft and control levers, and then to jig up and babbit bearings. An exhaustive test of each tractor is made as it is coinpleted, both on petrol and paraffin, so that each machine before it loaves the assembling shops is mechanically sound and in per fect working order. Our illustrations reproduced herewith show three operations, the first two of the four really being -so inter-connected as to form one operation.
We are given to understand that during the past 12 months between 400 and 500 tractors have been erected in this shop and despatched for duty on the land. From reports received from farmers up and. down the country, during the past two or three
weeks; it is stated that these machines have been responsible for ploughing an approximate acreage of 98,000—the average daily acreage of each WhitingBull outfit worklng out at about 4* acres.
The company have also recently opened a new implement department which is to handle the sale of the well-known line of Moline agricultural machinery, comprising ploughs for tractors, cultivators, binders, harrows, spreaders, drills, etc. The Moline Prow Co.'s representative has temporarily taken charge of the erection of these implements at the company's Chiswick wharf.
A big stock al spate parts for the tractors is held at the head office in Euston Road. N.W., where Mr. E. It. Osborne, the general manager, controls the sales, and business generally.
Whiting,•Ltd.' is also very fortunate in having an expert staff of demonstrators working in cooperation with Mr. H. S.
Blakeslee, the technical expert from the Whiting Bull tractor factory, who has probably as long an experience of this industry as any other man in the country, having been engaged on the practical side for the past 12 years, and studied the agricultural tractor question in most of the European countries, as well as South America and the United States, which places him in an exceptional position for personally advising farmers and Geeing that their machines always give the .best possible results. During our visit to the wharfside premises of the company we were particularly struck with the thor °ugh way in which the machines were .erected, which undoubtedly has been responsible, in a large measure, for the high praises which have been bestowed upon the work of tlac tractor in various parts of the country. We ourselves have had an opportunity on several occasions, at demonstrations and under Ordinary working conditions, of witnessing the tractor at work, and the ease with which the machine has been handled and its efficiency of running have been strikingly appaxent,