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).
Issues and further testing requirements for Centricast A.C.6 and other bearing materials.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 115\3\ scan0132 | |
| Date | 27th November 1937 | |
| 1020 Hl. from Rm.{William Robotham - Chief Engineer} c. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} c. Ey. c. RHC.{R. H. Coverley - Production Engineer} c. HPS.{Horace Percy Smith - Experimental Factory Mgr} c. Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/JWW. c. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/Swdl.{Len H. Swindell} Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}9/R.27.11.37. Centricast AC.6 Bearings - Batch A.1. With reference to Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/JWWl/MM.22.11.37., we do not agree that the facts are quite as recorded. We presume that the first paragraph of Hs{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair}/JWWl/MM.25.11.37. is a typing error. We have agreed to use the centricast bearings as produced, because we have already held up 6.B.IV a fortnight waiting for bearings, and there appears to be no guarantee that if we do not use those that have been made we shall get anything more satisfactory before Christmas. We do not know what is the lowest Brinell that can be used without the bearing hammering out, but from our experience there is not much object in having anything harder than this figure. Briefly, we have run many hundreds of hours testing A.C.2 billet cast and A.C.6 die cast bearings this year when we might have been doing other useful development work. The customer has got absolutely nothing out of our efforts, because on the completion of our tests we are told that A.C.2 is an unstable material, and thus it seems to have proved on production, and A.C.6 is not a manufacturing proposition when die cast. In other words, neither of these two bearing materials ought to have been submitted for test. We are now asked to start a new series of tests on centricast A.C.6 or A.C.7 material which somewhat optimistically has been expected to be the same or better than die cast A.C.6. A fortnight's feverish activity has proved the fallacy of such expectations. On all our development work we are now having to think before we spend money, and believe that it is now time that R.R. bearing materials were subjected to the same treatment. | ||