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Artificial Wood Board MANY are the uses for Produced in Long iv artificial board, which is
Lengths made of a waste material,
such as sawdust, bonded with some form of resin. It is employed to a considerable extent in road transport vehicles for many purposes, such as for lining bus bodies, refrigerator vans, etc., whilst it proves invaluable in building, in both permanent and temporary structures. Well-made board is strong, fire-resistant, and can take many types of finish, including veneers and metal or fabric coatings.' Hitherto, however, there has been a severe limitation in production owing to the need for heavy presses and restrictions as to size. In this connection, the British Artificial Resin Co., Ltd., 3, Vere Street, Oxford Street, London, WI, tells us that, after 10 years' research by a team of chemists and engineers working in conjunction with 12 concerns, including engineering and gas and electricity undertakings, the B.A.R. plant has been developed. In this, hard board can be made in continuous form and cut as required. It is claimed that whilst being superior in strength and other qualities to former materials of this type, the new board costs less than one-third
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of the average price to manufacture. The sawdust and resin are fed into a hopper, mixed, heated to a specific temperature by a high-frequency electrical method and pressed while the temperature is maintained by infra-red rays.
Multiple Drilling IN modern machine shops Heads Devised For adesigned for intensive proSingle Drills . . . . duction, multiple drills are
usually employed for dealing with such large components as cylinder blocks and crankcases. The machine tools normally used are, however, very expensive. To economize in them the Thornycroft concern manufactures its own multiple-drill heads, which can be used in connection with an ordinary single pedestal drill of a powerful type. These heads carry from 36 to 46 drills driven by enclosed gearing. Incidentally, where cylinder blocks have to be drilled on their upper and lower faces they are dealt with on two of these specially equipped machines mounted with a "turning frame" between them. The block is thus drilled on one face, slid into the turner, rotated and pushed on to the bed of the second machine. Pay Attention to Halt Signs and Pedestrian Crossings
DRIVERS should pay particular attention to the requirement that a vehicle must be brought to a dead stop at any point indicated by a halt sign. Many people appear to have the belief that to slow down to a crawl is sufficient, but this is not the case. We know of one driver who reduced his speed in such circumstances to so low a rate that his vehicle was barely moving, but he was caught and fined fairly severely. We have already, on several occasions, issued warnings in connection with the need for paying strict attention to pedestrian crossings. Only the other day a woman was killed while actually on one of these, but it will not require anything so drastic to bring trouble. Even the technical obstruction of a person at an uncontrolled crossing may result in a severe penalty.
Colour -Scheming to XPERIMENTS to deter Help Make Driving mine the ideal colour More Pleasant . . scheme for the cabs of their vans have been carried out by T. Wall and Sons, Ltd., the well-known makers of ice cream. Many unaccustomed pastel shades, such as rose-pink, duck-egg blue and yellow-ochre have been tried, but the drivers agree that Nile green is the colour which does most to make driving easy. It is said that this proves best in overcoming the glare of the sun reflected from the light-blue bonnets of the vans, and is most restful. Trials have been carried out over a period of some months, and as a result this particular colour has been selected for the cabs of all the company's vehicles. We can imagine that, if any such colour as rose-pink had been chosen, the drivers would have had to withstand some banter from their fellows in other companies.