A Mobile Coal-weighing Machine
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THE Weights and Measures section of the Middlesex Public Control Department has recently acquired a Bedford 15-cwt. van, the body of which, incorporating several interesting features, has been built by Clement Butler and Cross, Ltd., Glenhurst Road, Brentford, Middlesex..
Chief of these is a weighing-machine installation, for which the Clement concern was also responsible. Access to this is gained by raising a Brady aluminium roller shutter at the rear. The van is employed for weighing sacks of coal, a specimen sack, which the inspector, Tam tiavels in the van, may desire to check for weight, being taken from the vehicle of any coal merchant in the .county of Middlesex,
which may be encountered on the road.
To accommodate the scales, the rear of the chassis frame has been cut away and the ends of the side members joined by a dropped cross member curved forwards at its ends for attachment to the longi
tudinals. This carries the two rear feet of the weighing machine, which is supported in front by a single ball fitting.
This three-point suspension enables the machine to be adjusted easily, with the aid of a spirit level, to compensate for road camber or gradient. The need for dropping the .chassis frame is to bring the scale platform to a level on to which the coal sack may conveniently be placed.
The inspectors seat is normally beside that of the driver, but, by a simple and ingenious arrangement, it can be swivelled around its back -offside corner, so that it faces the scales, from which position the inspector can operate them, the weights, etc., being carried on the floor in front of the
machine. Four +-cwt. weights are visible in the picture ; there are smaller weights behind them.
Finished in dark green, the body is of metal construction and the complete van is eXtremely smart. It serves the whole of the county of Middlesex, and averages every day a mileage in the neighbourhood of AO.