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 discussing light alloy pressing techniques for car body work and proposed experiments with Park Ward.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 170\1\ img041 | |
| Date | 9th November 1938 | |
| Continuation of letter to :- Page 2. W. A.{Mr Adams} Robotham, Esq. 9/11/38. With regard to body work, a lot of interesting information was brought back on this by Mr. Devereux from his trip to Germany. The Germans have installed light presses of approximately 450-tons, and in these they press aluminium aircraft parts and body parts, using cast magnesium tools. In America the same thing is done by using zinc or lead dies, and Americans say the cost of the dies which are made in plaster casts from wooden patterns, are so low that it pays even if only 10 pressings have to be made. Mr. Devereux is so enthusiastic about the application for light alloy sheet, that he is buying a stretching press of the latest German type, and one of these light presses. I think that there is such a lot of possibility here in easy construction of pressings in aluminium, which cannot be done in steel, that we can hope to bring pressed metal construction into the sphere of very small outputs by the use of aluminium, whereas in the mass produced car field, the dies are necessarily expensive and the cost of the dies is also inflated by the fact that they prefer to make the largest and most elaborate possible pressings in order to cut down erecting charges. We can hope to produce a set of dies for a light alloy body for a few hundred pounds. We are going to experiment here on making car bodies out of light alloy pressings and using extruded sections for the framing, and I would like to interest some of the London coach builders in our experiments. In view of what you were asking about the Park Ward body which you have had panelled in aluminium over steel framework, I would like to try and interest Park Ward in the possibility of designing aluminium framework to do the job, and I suggest that when we get further with our experiments, we produce the shell for one of your bodies and Park Ward should trim and decorate the Cont'd ... ... ... ... - 2 - | ||