Passing Comments
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Wot, No Drawing?
FEW products sell themselves, most take a great deal of pushing. That is why sales organizations ought to project more personality into their tenders if these are not to become multiplicities of lifeless standardization.
Too many tenders nowadays are accompanied by illustrated brochures which are excellent examples of the printers' art, but which utterly fail as vehicles of worthwhile technical information. To the technically minded, they hardly seem to justify their apparent expense. Unfortunately, they frequently do not show just the thing the buyer wants to know.
On the other hand, an accompanying drawing inspires confidence. It can speak the international language of facts and figures, and convey the impression that the inquiry has received intimate personal attention at a technical level. Certainly, up and down the country, drawing offices are under-staffed and overloaded with work, but to advance this as an excuse for the absence of a drawing is cold comfort to a genuine inquirer, who expects one.
A drawing is often as necessary at the inquiry stage as when a contract is sealed and signed. If it will ntzt.
turn the scales and influence an order, then there is everything to be said for this addition to other essential• technical matter, including weights, where advisable.
How Will Congestion Re Countered?
NO one seems to have found any satisfactory answer to the problem of the increasing congestion oftraffic in cities and towns. This applies not only to Britain but to most other centres of population in the world where road transport is employed to any considerable extent. The alleged experts on traffic must be tearing their hair at what the conditions are likely to be in a few years' time if traffic continues to increase at the present rate.
Eventually, some drastic measures will become inevitable otherwise otherwise " traffic " will become a misnomer, for its slowing down will end in a halt. Unless reduction of some of the means for transport is instituted, and this would be a most unpopular measure in -many cases, there will have to be such expedients as fly-over roads, which would be very costly, but perhaps not more so than the demolition of property to permit wider thoroughfares_
What ! No Ladders?
CCORDING to reports from the United States, 1-1 tailor-made nylon " tarpaulins " have been introduced there for goods vehicles, and extensive tests have shown that they will give nine months' continuous service without cracking or needing repair. During that period the material has remained waterproof and flexible, as well as resistant to acid, oil and considerable degrees of abrasion. The seams are electrically fused so that they shall be leak-proof. An interesting point is that, as the cover is translucent, it need not be removed should occasion arise for the load to be examined.
Avoiding Corrosion in Oil Engines
nit fuel has a corrosive effect, particularly on
highly finished parts. Normally, when a vehicle is in service, this corrosion is not serious, but if an engine is idle for long periods, it is advisable to take precautions.
An excellent method of overcoming the trouble in such circumstances is to employ Shell Fusus A oil. the engine being run on this for a short time, thus protecting the injection pump, injectors and engine cylinders. The Perkins concern use this oil for testing all injection equipment, and new engines are run on it before leaving the. factory. It should be noted, however, that Fusus oil is not suitable for general engine testing as full-power will not be developed.
American Toll Road Plans Shelved
I ORRY drivers in America who have been the " mainstay of the pay-as-you-drive super highways on which a Id. per mile toll is levied, are now reverting to the free roads because they can travel almost as fast on them without paying the toll. The reason is that the super highways have cut down traffic jams on the free roads.
In many States plans for further toll roads are being shelved while inquiries are made into those already in use, as some are taking only half the tolls expected.
Not What We Appear!
A MEMBER of our staff who attended the
inaugural meeting for 1956 of the Society of Engineers, felt very small as, no doubt, did others present. The new president, Capt. H. F. Jackson, F.R.A.S., E.R.Met.S., gave as his address "The atom as a Source of Power," and he showed a remarkable knowledge of his subject. The statement, however, that caused some amusement was that if the atom could be collapsed on itself, the total residue from the human body would be about enough to cover a finger
An expert from the new Temple Press journal Nuclear Engineering almost capped this, later, by saying that certain calculations had indicated that 1 cu. in. of really " solid" matter would weigh some 4,000 tons.