Part 37
Another interesting feature is the handling of sand in the core room. The sand is handled entirely in a gallery built above the room, equipped with storage bins and sand mixers. Over each core-maker’s bench is a hopper, connected with the floor of the gallery. When the sand is mixed it is dropped through holes in the floor into the hoppers, which deposit the sand on the bench convenient for the core-maker.
This core room contains perhaps the only endless chain core oven in this country in which are two endless chain conveyors. These have hanging upon them large sets of shelves, upon which the cores are placed for baking. It is impossible to over-bake or under-bake a core, as the rate of travel of the conveyor is fixed at a speed which leaves the core in the oven the correct length of time.
All the aluminum parts as well as a large proportion of the brass, are also cast in this foundry.
The process of heat-treating steel forgings before they are machined is one of the most scientific and accurate features in the manufacture of this car. Vanadium steel is used throughout the construction of the car. It has been found from long and deep experimental work by engineers, that the structural condition of steel may be changed by the application of heat, and with certain conditions ascertained, by bringing a piece of steel to a certain temperature, and then setting the molecular condition in the steel by sudden cooling, or quenching, that the steel of a crank shaft can be made to stand impact, that the steel of a front axle can be made a most efficient agent to withstand vibration. Practically every forging in the car is made of a special steel, for which a special formula of heat-treating has been worked out, in accordance with the work, or strain, the part must stand in the finished car.
It is by the use of this high-grade, scientifically heat-treated vanadium steel that it is possible for the company to manufacture a light-weight car, which has the ability to stand up under severe usage, and to sell at the low price at which it is sold today.
The heat-treating department contains about seventy-five large furnaces, which consume from 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of fuel oil per day. It is into these furnaces that the various forgings are placed for heat-treating. In each one is introduced a pyrometer, connected electrically with a switchboard located in a separate building. This switchboard is very similar to those used in telephone exchanges. The operator takes the temperature reading of every furnace on his board about every minute. The furnace foreman is notified by the operator as to the temperature by means of small colored electric lights, located above the furnace. The lighting of all the colors at the same time is the signal to pull the heat or, in other words, extinguish the fires and empty the furnace. After the required heat has been reached, the forgings are allowed to either cool in the air, be covered with pulverized mica, or quenched in a special solution, as the case may require.
In this department are also located many grinding wheels and tumbling barrels, similar to those used in the foundry, so that the various forgings may be put in first-class condition before they are laid down in the machine shop.
The operations in the manufacture of the crank case, or engine pan, of the motor is of interest for several reasons, and the visitor has the opportunity of viewing these processes.
The crank case in itself is interesting because it is made from drawn sheet steel, instead of cast aluminum, as was once thought necessary.
The presses on which these crank cases are drawn are especially worthy of note, for they weigh about fifty tons each, and exert a downward pressure of about 900 tons. It is necessary that this drawing be made in four operations; the first and second are particularly interesting, on account of their depths, which are 5-1/2 and 9-3/16 inches, respectively. After each drawing operation it has been found necessary that the case be annealed, to restore the strained or calloused surface produced at certain points by contact with the dies, to a soft, ductile condition, to conform to the balance of the case, or, in other words, to produce a homogeneous condition of the surface.
This annealing is accomplished by a furnace through which the cases are moved by a chain conveyor onto an elevator which raises them up through the roof, and down again, depositing them near the press which is to perform the next drawing operation. While moving on this elevator the cases are cooled so that they can be handled as soon as they are lowered.
After the drawing operations have been completed, the case is trimmed; the side arms, front end supports, radius rod support, are riveted and brazed to it, making a case as strong and solid, and yet as light, as it is possible to make.
Near these crank case presses are located several hundred punch and drawing presses of various sizes. These presses blank out and draw from sheet steel of special analysis, a large number of parts (which in ordinary practice are made from castings or forgings), carrying the same strength, but also very much lighter in weight.
The interesting feature of this department is the arrangement of the presses, which enables all finished parts, as well as the scrap steel, to be deposited upon a traveling belt conveyor, at the end of which are stationed men who sort the various parts, and place them in proper receptacles. By this arrangement it is possible to place the presses closer together than could be done if it were necessary to leave aisles large enough for trucking the material to and from the presses, effecting a great saving in floor space.
The pictures with which this story is illustrated were all made by the photographic department of the company, and are but a few of the thousands on file, portraying details of every operation in the manufacture of a car. The department is completely equipped to take and produce motion picture films of the highest quality.
The growth of this department, in its own peculiar field, has kept pace with the growth of the company as an industrial factor. But a few years ago, this department was an incident only. The quarters were small, the staff was composed of two men, and the entire work was confined to making photographs of the cars and parts for advertising literature.
A modern studio is now maintained on the fourth floor of the factory--the staff of skilled operators numbering twenty.
The moving picture portion of the company’s work is, in volume, the largest conducted by any industrial concern. As a matter of interest, it is estimated that the operations of this department in the “movie” field are equal in magnitude to the efforts of many of the better known film-producing studios which specialize in such work. And, large as the scope of operations already is, it is still growing, in response to an increasing demand for pictures of the factory as well as of events of general interest.
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The expression “The tune that the old cow died of” has been used to express the giving of advice instead of material help, because of an old song which told of a man who had nothing to feed his cow upon and so played her this tune: “Consider, good cow, consider. This isn’t the time for grass to grow.”
How do Big Buildings Get their Granite?
Stones suitable for important building purposes are usually found at a good distance below the surface. In the case of unstratified rocks, such as granite, the stone is most frequently detached from the mass by blasting, a process by which much valuable stone is wasted, and a different method is employed whenever it is found possible. In the case of stratified rocks, blocks are separated by hand tools alone. Small holes a few inches apart are cut along a certain length of rock, into which steel wedges are inserted. These are driven in by heavy hammers until the stratum is cut through. The large blocks necessary for monumental purposes are generally obtained in this way, and before they leave the quarry they are usually reduced as nearly as possible to a rectangular form.
Granite is a fire-formed rock which has been exposed to great heat and pressure deep down in the earth. It is one of the most abundant of that species of rocks seen at or near the surface of the earth, and was formerly considered as the foundation rock of the globe, or that upon which all sedimentary rocks repose. Granite supplies the most durable materials for building, as many of the ancient Egyptian monuments testify. It varies a great deal in hardness as well as in color and for that reason must be selected with care when desired for building purposes.
Granite abounds in crystallized earthy materials, and these occur for the most part in veins traversing the mass of the rock. Of these minerals, beryl, garnet and tourmaline are the most abundant. The decomposed felspar of some varieties of granite yields the kaolin used in porcelain manufacture. Granite is not rich in mineral ores.
It is abundant in America and is largely quarried in the United States for building purposes, especially in New England. The best known quarries are those of New England. There is a great deal of granite found in South Carolina and Georgia, but much of this, as well as that of some parts of California, is in a singular state of decomposition, in many places being easily penetrated by a pick. Granite quarried anywhere in which felspar predominates is not well adapted for buildings, as it cracks and crumbles down in a few years.
Railroad Scenes from Shop and Road
Two of the best known types of electric locomotive. The New York Central type is 43 feet long, 14 feet 9-1/2 inches high, and weighs 230,000 pounds. It is equipped with four 550-horse-power motors and has a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour. The Pennsylvania type is the latest development. It is built in two halves for flexibility and either half may be replaced during repairs. The complete unit weighs 157 tons, is 64 feet 11 inches long, and the motors have combined horse-power of 4,000, giving a draw-bar pull of 79,200 pounds, and a speed of 60 miles per hour.]
The Story of an Up-to-Date Farm[68]
A man who had been tied in a great city all his life made his first visit the other day to an up-to-date farm. He was so surprised at what he saw that he wrote a letter describing his emotions. Some of it is worth quoting because it shows a picture of the modern farm as it was cast upon the eye of a man who had never seen it before.
“I was whisked from the railway station in a big touring car, through beautiful country. Then we turned up a flower and shrub lined concrete driveway, and stopped by a home, capacious and modern. Inside I found electric lights, electric iron and bathroom with running water.
“I found that the good man of the house had his own electric light and water plant, run by kerosene engines, that his cows were milked automatically, that he pulled his plows, harrows, drills, manure spreader and binder with a kerosene tractor, that his hired men went about the farm doing everything as they rode on some machine, that he went to church and town in an automobile, and that he delivered the products of his farm to market with a motor truck. Everything was managed like a factory. Things went forward with order and with assurance. Everyone was busy and happy.”
This is an optimistic picture of one of our best farms, but compare it with the best that could be found only a few hundred years ago. The best farmer of those days held all the land for miles around and lived in a castle in the middle of it. The castle was dark and cold and was made of rough stones fitted together. The poor farmers were serfs and came two or three days out of a week to their master’s house to work. Those were the great days of their lives, for then they ate of the master’s food.
Food--that was the problem of those long tired years which dragged through the ages, when nearly everyone was a farmer, and a farmer with crude tools held in his hands. Time was when practically the whole world went to bed hungry and rose again in the morning craving food, just as half the millions of India do today because they do with their hands what a machine should do.
People in the hungry, unfed ages grew so used to privation that even the philosophers accepted sorrow and woe as a matter of course and dilated upon their virtues for chastening the human soul. “It is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of mirth,” said one of the prophets, and such words brought comfort to the hungry, miserable millions who had to mourn and go hungry whether it was to their advantage or not.
Today the years glide by like pleasant pictures. We are fed, busy and happy. We almost let the dead bury their dead today while the living drive forward their tasks, achieving as much in a year as the old ages did in twenty. We have learned to feed ourselves and the food fills our bodies and brains with energy which must find expression in useful accomplishment. “Blessed is he who has found his work to do,” we say nowadays, “but thrice blessed is he who has found a machine to do it for him.”
Thread your way back through history to the time when the slender lives of men expanded into full and useful employment, and you will find that, so far as raising the world’s food is concerned, it all began with the invention of the reaper in only the last century. It is interesting to know something of the precarious entry of this machine and something of the dark background from which it emerged.
The Reaping Hook or Sickle.
From the first pages of history we find that the reaping hook or sickle is the earliest tool for harvesting grain of which we have record. Pliny, in describing the practice of reaping wheat says, “One method is by means of reaping hooks, by which the straws are cut off in the middle with sickles and the heads detached by a pair of shears.” Primitive sickles or reaping hooks made of flint or bronze are found among the remains left by the older nations. Pictures made in 1400 or 1500 B. C. upon the tombs at Thebes in Egypt, which are still legible, show slaves reaping with sickles. This crude tool, brought into use by ancient Egypt, remained almost stationary as to form and method of use until the middle of the last century.
The scythe, which is a development from the sickle, enables the operator to use both hands instead of one. The scythe is still a familiar tool on our farms, but it serves other purposes than that of being the sole means of harvesting grain.
The Cradle.
Gradually the blade of the scythe was made lighter, the handle was lengthened, and fingers added to collect the grain and carry it to the end of the stroke. With the cradle the cut swath could be laid down neatly for drying preparatory to being bound into bundles. This tool is distinctly an American development. The colonists, when they settled in this country, probably brought with them all the European types of sickles and scythes, and out of them evolved the cradle.
With the cradle in heavy grain an experienced man could cut about two acres a day, and another man could rake and bind it into sheaves, so that two men with the cradle could do the work of six or seven men with sickles.
The American cradle stands at the head of all hand tools devised for the harvesting of grain. When it was once perfected, it soon spread to all countries with very little change in form. Although it has been displaced almost entirely by the modern reaper, yet there are places in this country and abroad where conditions are such that reaping machines are impractical and where the cradle still has work to do.
Early Attempts to Harvest with Machines.
The beginning of practical efforts in the direction of harvesting by wholly mechanical means may be said to date from the beginning of the last century, about the year 1800, although very little progress was made from that time up to the year 1831.
It is true that the Gauls made use of an instrument nearly two thousand years before, but this contrivance fell into disuse with the decline of the Gallic fields. Pliny describes this machine which was used early in the first century and which might be termed a stripping header. Palladius, four centuries later, describes the same sort of machine. This device of the Gauls had lance-shaped knives, or teeth with sharpened sides, projecting from a bar, like guard teeth, but set close together to form a sort of comb. As it was pushed forward, the stalks next the heads came between these sharp teeth and were cut or stripped off into a box attached to and behind the cutter bar and carried by two wheels. When the box was filled with heads, the machine was driven in and emptied. This is the way in which it is supposed that it was worked, and the illustration is the generally accepted representation of it as roughly reconstructed from the old Latin description of Pliny.
Near the close of the past century, the subject of grain-reaping machines again began to claim the attention of inventors. In July, 1799, the first English patent was granted to Joseph Boyce. In 1806, Gladstone of England built and patented a machine which not only attempted to cut the grain, but also to deliver it in gavels to be bound. In 1807, Plucknett and Salmon both patented machines. In 1811, Smith and Kerr took out patents. In 1822, Henry Ogle, a schoolmaster of Rennington, assisted by Thomas and Joseph Brown, invented the so-called Ogle reaper. The next, and last, reaper of this period was invented by Patrick Bell of Carmyllie, Scotland, in 1826.