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).
Letter from a casting company discussing the feasibility and risks of an experiment with pressure casting a specific material for a client's design.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 152\2\ scan0044 | |
| Date | 7th October 1937 guessed | |
| COPY The Birmingham Aluminium Casting Co. Birmid Works, Smethwick BIRMINGHAM. FB/VS{J. Vickers}/3 WORKS. DIR. AHS/VH The Armstrong's Patents Co. Ltd. Eastgate. BEVERLEY. Dear Sirs, We are in receipt of yours of the 30th. ult. which has been handed to the undersigned on his return from holidays. We regret that we have not had an opportunity of experimenting with pressure casting in RR53C, as the particular die which is suitable for this experiment is unfortunately out of production, due to some fairly extensive repairs. This die will be in production again on the 18th. Oct. and we will make our experiments during that week. We think it right at this juncture to point out that any experiments which we may make at present, will only give us a rough idea as to how the material will behave in what is, after all, an extremely simple die. In view of this, they will not give us all the confidence, which is necessary to give any sort of guarantee that this material will perform satisfactorily in a die of your shape. Your design comprises of some fairly thick lumps of metal adjacent to deep cores, which are very close together and, therefore, from a casting point of view will have a weak wall between them. No such conditions exist on the die which we should use for our experiments, viz, a Steering Wheel centre. It is, therefore, just possible that we may have 100% success with the Steering Wheel centre and 100% failure with a casting of your shape. Our material P2, of which you have particulars was specially developed to take care of the varying conditions met with in pressure casting, such as those described above, and we feel a reasonable amount of confidence that we can produce your casting in P2, but in view of our entire absence of general experience in RR 53 or RR 53C, in pressure casting, it will be obvious to you that we can only express an opinion about its suitability and cannot give any guarantee whatever the result of our experiments may be. We suggest therefore, that you should consider this job on the basis of P2, for which we quoted you and leave it to us and our best endeavours to make the job in RR 53 C or any alternative material after the P 2 dies are completed. | ||