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 Morris Motors Ltd. concerning the forging of valves and the comparative costs of gear grinding versus shaving.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 128\1\ scan0325 | |
| Date | 22th April 1938 | |
| MORRIS MOTORS LTD. ENGINES BRANCH COVENTRY. Date 22nd April, 1938. To W.A.Robotham, Esq., Messrs. Rolls-Royce Ltd., DERBY. -2- Mr.Harriman received a letter from your Mr. Eccles asking if we could forge some valves for you, and as he knew that I had been in touch with you on this question of valves, he has passed this correspondence on to me. There will be no difficulty in making the valves which you require, and we will see if by any chance we have a die similar to your drawing WKS.695, which would of course save you the necessity of making a die yourselves. I will write you further on this subject when I can get the necessary information. With regard to the gearbox business, I have discussed the question of the cost of gear grinding with Mr.Harriman at some length. We can get gears ground for approximately 3/- per pair. This is vastly more expensive than shaving, which is only a matter of pence for the whole box. It is almost impossible for us to give you an idea of how much you could save by eliminating grinding, because in the first place we don't know how much your box costs you, and secondly you may be paying a much higher price than we do for grinding. In view, however, of the probable cost of your box, and of the fact that you should be able to grind all the gears in any box for under £1-0-0d, you would not be likely to save more than a very small percentage of the total cost by changing over to shaving, which requires expensive tackle, to be paid for, in your case, by a small number of boxes. All this is very vague, but I fail to see how it can be anything else under the circumstances. I feel quite certain, however, that you will be well advised to stick to grinding, assuming that you are not paying a fantastic charge for it. Many thanks for the figures which you received from Taube. Are you pulling my leg? We have all examined these figures with great care and cannot make head or tail of them. If there is some code by which they can be deciphered I should very much like a copy, as I can then pretend that I am smarter than anybody else in the Works. Yours sincerely, WRBoyle | ||