BRITISH INDUSTRY.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 704, 3 February 1922, Page 9

BRITISH INDUSTRY.

- WELDING STEEL WITH COPPER. The persistently high cost of labour and material has forced manufacturer’s to give the keenest attention to every promising source of economy in producion. For this among omer reasons there has been a revival of interest in a unique welding system developed in Great Britain a few years ago and since put into commercial operation. This system depends upon the fact that if a piece of copper on an iron plate is heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen to the melting point of copper (the copper will spread over the iron ■in a hin penetrataing film like butter on hot toast,. So, if the copper is melted between two pieces of iron it welds them together in an amazingly inimate fashion, the copper film actually working itself { in between the crystals of the iron. By this process machine parts which can most conveniently be made in two pieces can be efficiently joined together without the complication of screws. In effect it enables the cheapness of separate manufacture to be combined with the strength and convenience of ( the solid combination. Steam turbine blades and the cage of body of a high speed contrifugal governor for small steam turbines are among the articles which have been successfully made by this simple and ingeniuos process. IMPROVED DROP HAMMERS. A battery of drop hammers recently supplied by a British firm to the engineering workshops of a Chinese railway possesses several interesting features. It includes three hammers, one of 30cwt, one of 15 ! cwt., and a third of 7cwt. All three ; hammers are lifted by wheels on a : single overhead shaft, driven by an 1 electric mqtor through a closed gear | box which reduces the speed. The ' rcpes supporting the hammer blocks < are raised on grooved drums to which they are held by special friction blocks ; at any desired moment the friction block is raised and the hammer falls. The mechanism of; control is so simple that a child could operate the largest hammer with ease. Each hammer can be lifted to any height and allowed to fall, or it can be held stationary at any point Before being installed the battery was subject to the severest tests, ail three hammers being held suspended while the motor continued to run, but not the slightest tendency to' overheating showed itself in che lifters. No other drop hammer, it is confidently s/tated, was ever subjected to so arduous a test.