From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Visit to the Qualcast Limited foundry, detailing their moulding and production processes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 148\5\ scan0163 | |
| Date | 31th May 1937 | |
| SECRET. Matthews 1260 E.1/HP.31.5.37. To Mr. Hives, from E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c.c. Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} HHQ re Visit to Qualcast Limited. Yesterday afternoon I saw most of the skill taken out of moulding at the Qualcast Foundry, and the quality of the product as far as finish is concerned was very high. They are of course working on quantity production and use mostly metal patterns and moulding boxes. They are doing a tremendous lot of work for the motor trade, Morris, Austin, and the Humber Hillman combine. They make 1500 Minx manifolds a week regularly. They have in fact so much of this kind of work that the castings for their own lawn mower production are now made out. A considerable number of the motor castings they produce are cylinder heads. Six different kinds of iron are run and their practice is to keep one cupola constantly on, one iron of which they use most, and two other cupolas alternatively being charged and run through with the other varieties in turn. This precludes them from arranging the work on a constant flow basis, and in fact as regards the moulding floor there is no conveyor system of any sort employed, the work being grouped on a programme according to the iron required. This leads to a considerable amount of handling of materials but it is localised as far as possible. The labour employed is all semi-skilled and in general youthful. The average earnings on the moulding floor were given as about £5 per week. The system seems to be that a moulder makes up a given number of boxes a day before he starts earning bonus. A typical case would be 60 boxes before the bonus earning period starts with an average output of 72. Naturally moulding machines are employed for all this work. The cores are all made by girl labour except for four blowing machines operated by men. A conveyor table is used for collecting the cores and carrying them to the drying oven. The core sand and binders used are very similar to our own but about 9000 cores a day are turned out, and are produced on a very economical basis. | ||