WAR PAINT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1942, Page 4

WAR PAINT

THE SPRAYING OF SHELLS & BOMBS. Three people can put the paint on 5,000 of Britain’s war shells in 8 hours with a new machine designed and built in only 10 days by British makers of paint-spraying equipment. The machine does the work of 120 men and women in one-fiftieth of the time. The first one showed that a 25pounder shell could be given its coat of protective paint in 4.8 seconds, a process which previously called for four or five handlings and took as many minutes to carry out. Two watchers and a loader are the onlj labour required. Another machine designed to put on automatically the red and green marking symbols was evolved in three or four weeks, while a smaller version of this, for 20 mm. shells, marks 30 shells a minute, or one every two seconds. These technicians were able to tackle the job because of their experience in making machinery for lacquering food cans, many of which have been supplied to food canners since war broke out. They are coating one-pound cans at the rate of 25,000 per 8-hour shift. Some of Britain’s “beautiful bombs,” are handled at the factory where tiny jet sprays designed to a half-thou-sandth of an inch give ,an inside coating to protect the metal from the action of explosive chemicals. The coating has to be exactly even, and the machine cuts out automatically when the job is finished. Before the war there were no women among the 40 hands employed at the factory; now 40 of the 100 people working there are women. Before the war, one girl checker who is even more critical of the work than the Government inspectors, was working on leather handbags.