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Prosperity for the Remover B RIGHTER days await the furniture remover.

15th May 1936, Page 33
15th May 1936
Page 33
Page 34
Page 33, 15th May 1936 — Prosperity for the Remover B RIGHTER days await the furniture remover.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

An increase in traffic is taking place, whilst rates show a gradual upward tendency. The improvement in charges is partly due to the efforts of the Furniture Warehousemen and Removers Association, which has issued a schedule of rates for local work and is congidering tackling the stabilization of rates for long-distance removals. There is also a marked degree of co-operation among specialist removers themselves—an essential factor in any national move towards more economic working.

A high standard of efficiency in the removal industry is fostered by the F.W.R.A., which has arranged facilities for the technical education of new entrants. The level of skill of the specialist removal contractor is now proverbial, and its attainment, with the attendant prestige in the public eyes, has undoubtedly been facilitated by the development of the commercial motor. The excellent suspension of the modern vehicle makes breakages of fragile goods in transit a rare occurrence, and reduces the need for bulky and expensive packing. Moreover, its reliability ensures that punctuality in removal work which is part and parcel of goodwill. The remover owes a great debt of gratitude to the commercial-motor manufacturers.

The number of specialist removers and the total of vehicles which they operate are unknown, but the F.W.R.A. has some 750 members, a figure that will doubtless be eclipsed in the near future. With a complete realization by all removal contractors of the need for unity and of their moral obligation to support their national association, nothing short of social and economic collapse can prevent the industry from becoming one of the strongest and most efficient in the country.

Beyond the Obstacles a Rich Reward

A S the chief theoretical advantage of the rotary .„valve over the poppet valve, the average man would probably name its superior quickness of functioning. Obviously its rapid opening and cutoff and the large port area practicable are highly desirable characteristics, but we would be more inclined to place first its low temperature.

A poppet-valve head, possibly red hot, forming part of the wall of the combustion chamber, limits the amount to which the charge can be compressed. Thus the power output per unit of cylinder capacity and the thermal efficiency are similarly limited.

The poppet has faced competition from sleeve valves and rotary valves for many years, but has not yet been superseded. Great as are its attractions, the rotary valve is not yet established. Such advances have been made, however, that it would be unwise to predict that it will never become the valve of the future.

Lubrication difficulties and imperfect sealing have been amongst the main problems that have hindered its development. A plug in a hole is such a satisfactory and simple means of making a pressure-tight joint, that it has justified, for decades, a complexity of cams, push-rods, springs, rockers and whatnot for its actuation. If the joint could possibly be made equally effectively by two faces having constant relative motion, there could be substituted for all this mechanism a simple chain or gear drive, obviating reciprocating motion, impacts, sudden changes -in velocity and a multiplicity of small wearing parts.

For those engineers who are striving to bring the rotary valve to a state where it will be, commercially and mechanically, on a competitive level, there is indeed a wonderful incentive. Engines of higher power and lower consumption would be practicable, at the same time being of simpler construction, needing less maintenance and costing less to manufacture.

Hard as it is to eradicate a time-honoured practice, we cannot see many thorns in the path of the rotary valve, if once those drawbacks that have in the past appeared insuperable can be overcome. Recent experiments are highly encouraging. Ports with flexible lips have proved remarkably successful, and good results have been obtained from rotary valves themselves enabled, in somewhat similar manner, to conform to changes in the surfaces against which they must bear.


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