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 Ferodo Limited discussing a faulty brake drum and recommending new material composition.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 141\3\ scan0324 | |
| Date | 8th November 1934 | |
| All Communications to be addressed to the Company. FERODO LIMITED TELEPHONE: 19 CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH (4 LINES) TELEGRAMS: FRICTION, PHONE, CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH. FERODO REGD. TRADE MARK BRAKE & CLUTCH LININGS CODES: WESTERN UNION FIVE LETTER EDITION, BENTLEYS COMPLETE & 2ND PHRASE, MARCONI INTERNATIONAL, LIEBER'S CODE, LIEBERS LATEST CODE, A.B.C. 5TH & 6TH EDITIONS. CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH, VIA STOCKPORT, ENGLAND. Depots:- LONDON 222, TOTTENHAM COURT RD W. 1. ABERDEEN 26, GUILD STREET. BELFAST 8, 10 & 12, MONTGOMERY ST BIRMINGHAM 202, CORPORATION ST BRIGHTON 84, QUEEN'S ROAD. BRISTOL 19, PARK STREET. CARDIFF 39, CHARLES ST DUBLIN 120, UPPER ABBEY ST GLASGOW 70, WATERLOO ST LEEDS 25, HUNSLET RD LIVERPOOL 1-3, BERRY STREET. MANCHESTER 32, CATHEDRAL ST NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE WORSWICK CHAMBERS, 10, WORSWICK ST OFF PILGRIM ST 8th November 1934. YOUR REF. Exptl. Dept. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}17/KM. OUR REF. JNL/IS. W. A.{Mr Adams} Robotham Esq., Messrs Rolls-Royce Ltd., Derby. Dear Mr Robotham, I thank you for your letter of November 6th enclosing the Laboratory report on a faulty Lake & Elliott drum, and also two polished specimens. I have examined these, and they do not tally with my conception of Millenite in the slightest degree, except, of course, for the fact that they are cast iron. I am enclosing, as promised, a copy of our recommendation to brake drum manufacturers which has been formulated as a result of much experimental work, durability and friction tests, in our Laboratories working in conjunction with the University of Sheffield. I am sorry that I have not a photomicrograph of the material available, but I have endeavoured to reproduce in sketch form the way the photomicrograph would look. It will be thus seen that the working face of the drum is described as a net-work of soft ferrite with infillings of fine graphite and hard sorbitic pearlite. I believe I explained how we had keyed up the successful results given by such a drum with a theory which satisfies all known facts. Having evolved this theory, we checked it by taking copper/tin alloys, poor and rich, so that we had a hard, tin-rich constituent, and a softer, tin-poor constituent, of very much the same configuration as that described above. Proceeding onwards, we produced a | ||