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 the Empire Rubber Company regarding the testing and design of a new door seal.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 117\3\ scan0280 | |
| Date | 29th January 1941 | |
| 1021 29th January, 1941. Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}/BAG.5/ST.{Capt. P. R. Strong} EMPIRE RUBBER COMPANY, DUNSTABLE, Beds. Dear Sirs, We thank you for your letter of the 27th instant, enclosing a sample of sponge rubber with synthetic skin. This, we think, appears to be very good and we are arranging to carry out a test in our cold chamber, to see what the actual effect is, from the point of view of freezing and hardening of the skin. If we think that it will be satisfactory, we will then send you along the type of seal we are at present using, which is in rubber sponge covered with velvet, so that you may make sufficient for us to give it a test. We are enclosing a blue print No. RB.{R. Bowen}18003, of a door seal which we propose using on a new design we have in hand. This is drawn twice full size and, so that you may see the position it will occupy in the body, we have roughly pencilled in red the outline of the edge of the door and the part of the body in which the seal will be fixed. A channel is formed all round the door opening, as marked in red, into which the rubber seal will be stuck. We should like this in a good black rubber which is non blooming. We should like the part that engages the door to offer as little resistance as possible when the door is closed, and yet to be stiff enough to hold its shape during the curing process. You will see that the walls are of approximately even thickness. Will you please use your own judgement regarding this. The writer is of the opinion that the portion which is fixed in and round the steel channel can be reasonably thick, while the remainder is kept as thin as possible, to give the desired flexibility. | ||