NEW TYRES OF STEEL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 73, 3 July 1942, Page 5

NEW TYRES OF STEEL

ON 30,000 MORE FARM VEHICLES FOR BRITAIN'S 1942 HARVEST Thirty thousand farm vehicles, wanted by British farmers for this year's harvest, will be delivered to time, thanks to two new standard wheel patterns. Agricultural engineers in Britain were faced with two shortages—of materials for making pneumatic tyres for tractor trailers and tumbrils, and of seasoned timber and skilled wheelwright labour for making the old-fashioned wooden cart wheel. The first of these problems had arisen long before the loss of rubber producing territories in the East, for war work of greater priority had already made it difficult to get moulds and presses for tyre making. So the engineers have evolved an all steel wheel 3ft in diameter with a minimum tyre width of 6in. To absorb the shock formerly taken by the pneumatic tyre there are two coil springs between the axle bed and the cart, kept in line by a sliding pin in grooves. The 3ft wheel can be turned out in as many months as it took A'ears for the older types. A road test, with two tons over a 1 mile trip, at 10 and then 15 m.p.h., proved the rubberless trailers to be quite as good as those with pneumatic tyres. The British Agricultural Engineers" Association have given to the world the design for the new 3ft wheel and one for a 4ft Gin steel wheel for farm carts free of all patent and licence rights.