THE DOOM OF THE FELT WASHER.
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Avoiding Oil Waste and Getting Cleaner Road Surfaces.
CORK is a wonderful material, for it is resilient and retentive of its resiliency, it does not perish, and when subjected to considerable friction it has a long life and it is oil resisting. In the natural state, however, It is not homogeneous and it lacks tenacity, and considerable experiment and research have been devoted to the problem of adding these attributes in order to increase its sphere of usefulness. In every cork-growing country where the material is worked into useful articles of commerce—bottle corks and bungs, principally—sthere is considerable waste in the form of chips and dust. Ground to various degrees of fineness and mixed with some bonding material, cork compound has been produced, which can be, and is, cut up into mats and slabs, balls and pads, forming useful substitutes for other materials. The articles so produced, however, are brittle, liable to easy fracture and chipping, and the bonding material will not resist oil.
It has been left to an 11..glish inventor,. Mr. P. Lang, to discover (after many years of research, in wbich nearly 900 different experiments were made) a bonasug which gives to cork the last quality that was lacking, and, curiously enough, so successful is his method that be can now produce materials of a con-. siderably better quality than those of his foreign or Wirer competitors, and he can beat them on price.
The new material is known as Langite ; it is made by the Cork Manufacturing Co., Ltd., of Folly Lane, South 'Ohingford, London, E.4, and it is likely to enter largely into use in connection with motors and machinery of all kinds. It has been on the market for two or three years and has already been employed in various directions where prolonged preliminary tests were not necessary. During that period, however, certain very definite tests have been carried out by important users, in order to verify the claims of the manufacturers to the imperviousness of the material to oil seepage, and these tests have now concluded with credit to the product. In one test two engines, working side by side, have always been notable for their oily condition, owing to
• leakage at various joints. One of the engines was equipped with Langite gaskets, washers and glands, and now stands always clean beside its oily workmate.
A highly important test carried out by the research department of the London General Omnibus Co., Ltd., and extending point by point over many
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months, has now concluded, and the first substantial order has been received from that company which will displace felt, leather and other materials from about 40 places on various types of bus chassis. The London bus is not a great offender in the exudation of oil, but this has mainly been because of careful maintenance and nightly watchfulness over every chassis, but, without question, motor vehicles generally do drop an immense amount of oil on the road surfaces, and this, on a wet day, is one of the root causes of vehicles skidding and side-alipaing. Joints in the engine, gearbox, steering gear, rear axle, hubs, etc., exude oil, which, spreading over the surrounding parts, forms catchment areas for dust and dirt. With a suitable oil check at every point chassis would be cleaner and would be easier to wash down and road surfaces would not get into such a filthy state as they now do.
Practically every electrical transformer manufacturer in the country and many of the big engineering firms have adopted the material. The MetropolitanVickers Co. is now a very large user. The transport department of the Post Office is fitting its fleet with Langite washers, gaskets, etc., and orders are now coming in, in daily increasing quantities, from the motor industry.
We have had the opportunity of seeing the whole of the processes of manufacture (exept one!) at the Folly Lane works. The cork comes into the works in slabs and in smaller form. It is glsiund up and winnowed and sifted into various grades of fineness, an essential feature of this part of the work being the removal of all dirt. The density of the finished product determines the fineness of the powder taken for a mix; this is then compounded with its bonding materials, which are secret, and is then compressed to a given degree, ac
cording to the density required. Held tightly in a steel easing, the compound is baked for a given period in a vacuum, and the resulting blocks are then put into cutting machines to produce sheets, slabs and other forms. The material can he shaped and finished on a lathe and it can be cut to the tfiinness of the finest Bristol millboard. A method has been developed of laminating this extremely thin material so that the tensile strength is greatly increased and the result is a sheet that is fascinatingly pliable.
The different densities Of the material for oiltight joints, anti-vibration materials, washers, packing glands, gaskets, table mats, bath mats, cricket balls, polo balls, etc., have been discovered by experiment and have been fixed, and as a result the makers are able definitely to deal with any inquiries and to supply the type of material for any purpose that may be stated. To quote a few of the uses specified in recent orders, we find Langite used for bearing-housing washers, pump-shaft-gland packing, valve-cover joints, clutch-stop liners, petrol-cock •seatings, motion-shaft washers, gearbox-lid joints, steering-box washers, axle-shaft washers, regulatingvalve glands, extension-shaft bracket washers, valve-spring covers, front and , rear-hub washers and inspection-door joint gaskets. Thin Langite strip has also been used successfully between the leaves of motor-vehicle springs.
Two points which we would emphasise are the long life of Langite products as compared with felt, leather, etc., and the saving in first cost. In this latter respect we have only to instance the fact that Woolworths buy all their cork table mats from the Cork Manufacturing Co., saving money, employing British labour and • getting an article which is far less brittle than the German, American or Portuguese goods.