Canterbury Industry

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31030, 9 April 1966, Page 12

Canterbury Industry

cables, radio wires, car cables, distribution cables for underground use, aerial wires, flexible braids, appliance wires and telephone wires ... in effect the range of generally used wires and. cables. The copper for the cables and wires comes in oiled rods, oxidised black. This oxidation is removed in a weak acid bath before the copper rods are drawn through dies into wires, by huge machines. Pickled In Acid The rods are normally about one quarter inch in diameter. One rod 4ft 6in long will, when drawn, make one mile of .0076 wire . . . one of the strands used (in bunches of 23) in household flex. After the rods have been pickled in acid and washed, they are ready for drawing. The wire is annealed after it has been drawn so the wire will be soft and flexible. When rubber insulation was used the wire had to be tinned, for the copper had an affinity for the sulphur in the rubber, but now P.V.C. and polythene insulation is used this process is rarely necessary. After the wire has been drawn it is bunched or stranded, and then “laid up.” Briefly, this process is combining the separate cores or wires to make a cable. Household flex, for example, has three separate insulated wires. Large laying-up and stranding machines in the factory can make cables using up to 127 separate wires. Other machines make braided cable for car battery earth straps, while others braid asbestos and fabric coverings on flex. Staff Training Associated British Cables at present imports the P.V.C. compound which is applied to the wire cores by extruders, but the company is now installing a compounding plant so it can formulate its own P.V.C. from the raw materials. Associated British Cables supplies to the wholesale trade throughout New Zealand. Workers in the factory get from one week to six months’ training, depending on the job they are to do.

ploys its own skilled machine maintenance staff. The extruders are Austra-lian-made, and the remainder of the machines are British, except for certain bradding and bunching machines which are American, and a strander made in Austria. No Exporting The copper used in making the wire comes from Britain and Australia, the plashes from British, American and Japanese sources, and there are other materials used from both British and New Zealand sources. The firm serves New Zealand only and there is no export, although occasionally some A.B.C. wiring has been used in appliances exported by other firms. Since 1951 business has expanded very considerably, and now millions of feet of wire and cable are made each week. About 3500 tons of copper and 2000 tons of P.V.C. and polythene are used each year. There are about 26 major machines in the factory—it may seem a small number, but each does an enormous amount of work. The total arean of the factory is 73,000 sq ft. and that of ancilliary buildings is 28,000 sq ft, 400 Types Last year the factory insulated more than 60,000 miles of cable, in 400 different types and sizes. Cables are produced at speeds between 1500 and 90,000 ft an hour. The general manager of Associated British Cables is Mr J. D. Bull. The photograph taken from the warehouse area, of Associated British Cables shows girls machine-winding household wire on to small spools. Stacks of larger spools, which are loaded automatically as the heavier wire comes off the machines, are in the background.