IT WRITES IN FLAME

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 203, 23 August 1940, Page 3

IT WRITES IN FLAME

WAR INVENTION THAT CUTS STEEL LIKE PASTRY A new machine which "writes" with flame has been designed and made in Britain and is now at work in a big motor factory engaged in war production. The "pencil'' is an intensely hot oxy-acetylene flame and the "paper" is tough steel plate. Instead of drawing lines, the flame cuts tlnough the metal as easily as a housewife cuts pastry. A long, delicately balanced horizontal arm. which can be swung in any direction, carries an electric motor driving a spindle. The spindle can be set to traverse automatically the grooves of a plate of the pattern which is desired for the steel sheets to be cut,out. Underneath the bench a similar arm carrying the nozzle for the cutting flame traces the precise movement of the upper arm- Thus as the specimen design is traced on top, so the flame below cleaves the steel with exact precision. So powerful is the flame that it will cut through an eight inch thickness of metal,, or a number of sheets can be clamped together and cut out simultaneously. The process can be applied to all types of design such as circles, ovals, irregular shapes or toothed wheels. It is also adaptable for hand tracing directly from a drawing. The principle is similar in. effect to a device invented some years ago whereby a written announcement or a drawing done on a sheet of paper could bo reproduced simultaneously ih facsimile on another piece of paper in a different rconi or town, or even on a screen.