PETONE WORKSHOPS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 April 1926, Page 4

PETONE WORKSHOPS

NEW EIXTRICAL, ’.MACHINES WELLINGTON. April 23 The Railway Department is now using hyrdo-eleotric power from Mangahao, which is being received at 11,000 volts from Khandullali direct. The current is then reduced by transformers. to -ICO volts. It then goes to the main switchboard of 2000 amps capacity. and from there through a totally eurh sed armour-clad switchgear, to the distributing panels for each workshop. All the switch-gear is of the latest type, enclosed and armourclad, reducing the risk of accident to any operators to the minimum. The high tension and workshop switchgear was supplied by tho Metropolitan 1 ichors Company, the transformers by the English Electric Company, and the low tension switch-gear by Ferguson ami Tallin. The whole of the electric work in the Petono workshops, including the erection and designing of Hie sub-station, has been curried out by the- signals and clcctrie.al branch of the New Zealand Rail-

Tw i air compressors, of 125 Ji.p. each, now drive the pmiemntic tools, anil have proved most effective in speeding up work. The conversion Inun ‘•team to electric drive has boon completed in tho car and wagon simps. Here there is an electric wheel l ithe, where carriage and wagon wheels which have become considerably worn are re-turned. With the old licit drive, only five pairs of wheels could be re-turned in a day. With the electric drive ten pairs can ho put through, ready for service again. So- powerful is this lathe that it can. if necessary, take a strip of steel from a quarter to half an inch thick from the wheel. Yet it can he adjusted to take off Ihe veriest shaving. The cutting develops tremendous heat, and when thick shavings arc taken off Hie steel turns liltie with the heat. An interesting machine is the automatic saw sharpener, which sharpens hand and circular saws for cutting steel or timber in a fraction of the time they can lie done by hand, and there is another ingenious device for setting the -saws when sharpened. A hig planing machine recently brought out from Home has a-Lancashire dynamo drive on it. The electrical reverse is a great advance on the old mechanical method.

A 51) li.p. motor drives an electrical I:;'!l-making machine, which can turn out la.lts at the rate of live a minute. ■The man operating the machine takes the while hot bar from the furnace, and plains it in a slot iu the machine. A sharp blow shapes the body of the bill': the second operator shapes the head, nml the third and final movement chops the holt off from the liar. The complete operation takes 12 seconds. A new machine which is lining installed is tin 1 acetone and oxygen gas cutting machine, which will cut through steel liars about- three times faster than the quickest saw, and will cut to any pattern; it will shear through fourinch steel almost ns a knife will go through cheese. The Department has only one other machine of this kind, which is installed in a. South Island workshop. The suction gas plant is still in use driving some of the other machines, which have not yet boon converted over to electric drive, but in the course of a few weeks this plant- will he entirely dispensed with when other lathes and machines will each have their own motors, thus effecting another move forward in the direction of efficiency, speed, and heller workmanship.