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 to W.D. Appel of Vauxhall Motors regarding a visit and valve spring wire.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 127\4\ scan0018 | |
| Date | 20th October 1936 | |
| 1097 Exptl. Dept. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}12/KW. 20th October, 1936. W.D. Appel, Esq., Messrs. Vauxhall Motors Ltd., Luton, Beds. Dear Appel, Thank you for your letter of October 19th. Mr. Hives and I will get down to Luton as early as we can on Friday, between 10 and 11 o'clock, and hope to be able to see something of you before you go off to Germany. Mr. Sidgreaves, our Managing Director, has expressed a wish to come with us, and unless we hear to the contrary we shall anticipate that this will be alright. One other technical matter I would like to discuss while at Vauxhall's, and that is your source of valve spring wire and the success you have with this item in service. Recently we have made several attempts to get away from Chrome-Vanadium but have always found that the English hard-drawn piano wire is so full of surface cracks, and suffers so badly from surface decarburisation, that it is out of the question for our requirements. I got some valve springs made when I was in America 3 years ago, and this wire, which is roughly the same specification, has altogether better surface finish. I have some quite interesting Photomicrographs on the subject, which might interest whoever is responsible for this particular feature. Yours sincerely, | ||