T HE Anglo-American Oil Co., Ltd., which has been established in
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this country for over 40 years, has recently effected a number of important changes in its organization. The board is now all-British and the administration is under the control of 14 London and provincial sales managers.
The company maintains in England and Scotland 12 large refineries and installations, owns a fleet of 135 oil tankers and other water craft, and runs 3,075 British-built motor vehicles. There are 8,000 British workpeople on its pay roll, which approximates £1,250,000 per annum.
The company informs us that it intends to preserve its independence and is not to amalgamate with other concerns.
IN most designs of engine casting, the softest metal Is to be found in the cylinder barrels, because these cool at a comparatively slow rate. This is directly opposite to what is required for good service, as the bores should be as hard as possible compatible with the requirements in respect of machining. It is claimed by the Mond Nickel Co., Ltd., that this condition is best met by the use of a nickel cast iron, as this material will give increased hardness in the thick sections whilst maintaining machinability in the lighter parts. The trouble can, of course, also be overcome by employing cylinder liners.
SOME time ago we referred to the possibility of hardening metals by rotating them in a strong magnetic field.
A paper on the subject was read last January by Mr. E. G. Herbert, B.Sc., and we are glad to receive the following further information from the author :—" It has become clear that the alternate softening and hardening at increasing intervals of time is a periodic effect due to some pulsation taking place in the atoms themselves, and it has been attributed to a gyroscopic precession of the electrons—a slow and rhythmic displacement of their axes of revolution, set up in the first place by the magnetic disturbance and persisting for many hours, thus causing periodic fluctuations in the mutual electro-magnetic attraction or cohesion which is the basis of hardness and other physical properties of the metal."
It has been found possible to reduce and render permanent a very high degree of harshness in such articles as razor blades, drills and other tools. High-speed steels are usually treated when hot. Stabilization must be carried out a definite number of hours after rotary treatment. It consists in placing the cold specimen for a minute or more across the gap of the electro-magnet. The process must be timed to coincide with the selected phase of the fluctuations set up by the rotary treatment.
THE popularity of upper-cylinder lubrication is growing apace. The latest development which has come to our notice is the use of it in copious quantities to facilitate the preliminary running-in of the engines of new vehicles. The transport manager of one concern has arranged that when delivery is being taken of a new vehicle a quart of this lubricant is poured into the petrol tank as a preliminary to its first run upon the road. He maintains that, as the outcome of this practice, which he has now followed for some time, the ill effects sometimes resulting from occasionally unavoidable misuse of a new vehicle are obviated.
WE are glad to note that " The Chloride Chronicle and Exide News" devotes some space to the quashing of boosts for battery dopes which have appeared in some trade papers, but not in The Commercial Motor.
We have always been strongly against the encouragement of claims for compounds which are supposed to rejuvenate batteries. When the cells get into such a condition that the need for treatment arises, they should be properly serviced. Apart from this, the use of any form of dope usually renders void the guarantee issued by the maker of the battery.