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).
The moulding, lamination, and tool room processes at Messrs De La Rue Ltd.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 142\1\ scan0285 | |
| Date | 28th November 1938 guessed | |
| All the platerns are heated by steam as this proves more economical than electricity. On the big presses dashboards were being made for Hillman and Morris Cars. In one case two moulds were in operation on one press. The dashboards which are about 42" long have a floor to floor time of approximately 8 minutes and are supplied complete to Humber-Hillman Ltd., for 7/6d each. All trimming of the mouldings is done in a separate department where girl labour is largely employed. There is one shop which is devoted entirely to injection moulding and the six injection machines are modified presses converted by De La{L. A. Archer} Rue Ltd. The body of a telephone is being done by the injection process and this represents a very large job to be done on an injection machine. The result, however, is an extremely good moulding. The greater part of the output of the injection moulding plant is confined to small articles which are produced in multiple moulds. LAMINATED MATERIALS. A separate section of the works is devoted to the manufacture of laminated sheets, the method employed is to feed brown paper or fabric through a long heating chamber where the paper is sprayed with liquid moulding material and dried. The treated paper is cut to standard size sheets and these are then placed together in a press, the heat from the platerns melts the plastic material and at the same time the sheets are being highly compressed. Sheets varying in thickness from .005" to 3.00" are made in this manner. It is usual practice to interspace the treated sheets of paper with sheets of untreated paper. The plastic material under the influence of the heat from the platerns soaks into the untreated paper, and the finished product is more easily punched than if only treated paper is used. These laminated sheets especially the fabric type are extremely strong. TOOL ROOM. Messrs De La{L. A. Archer} Rue Ltd., make the majority of their own moulds and have a fairly large Tool Room which is devoted to this work. The majority of the dies are cut on a Keller Die-sinking machine but some hobbing is done. A 2000 ton hobbing press is used for this class of work, and hobs to the depth of 4.00" were seen although the machine was idle at the time of the visit. The hobbing process consists of making a model of the proposed part in a high carbon steel. This is then pressed into a block of soft steel. The advantage of this method of making moulds is that it is possible to make the male model or hob of parts where the machining of the female mould would be very difficult if not impossible. Continued........ | ||