Experts In Building Ranges

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31077, 4 June 1966, Page 14

Experts In Building Ranges

Canterbury Industry

(Specially written for et The Press’* by DON GRADY.) IVEARLY 400,000 11 New Zealand housewives have bought Atlas electric ranges made by Scott Bros., Ltd., of Christchurch.

Founded 96 years ago Scotts built railway engines in 1882, when locomotives were about as modern as space satellites are today. Treacherous rivers such as the Teramakau, on the West Coast, and the Awatere are spanned by Scott-built bridges. Today, like most other manufacturing ■ complexes, Scotts have, because of high tooling costs, turned to specialisation. Of Scott’s total work force of 350 today, about 95 per cent are employed building electric ranges. At the three-acre premises in the heart of Christchurch, a new vitreous enamelling plant which cost £150,000, is in operation. Vitreous porcelain enamelling is the art of applying glass to steel. As it melts, it bonds into the pores of the iron.

Rigid standards were set by the company’s founders, John Lee Scott and his brother, George, from the time they arrived in Lyttelton as highly skilled pattern makers and engineers in 1870. They are adhered too and cherished by the manager and

chairman of directors (Mr C. S. Peate), a grandson of Mr J. L. Scott Many New Zealanders know the famous Scott fuel ranges, at one time installed in 150,000 homes. These “work-horse” stoves could be found wherever damper was baked, or mutton roasted. They are not made today but they can be found in construction camps, bushmen’s huts, shepherds’ huts, whares and baches.

By the beginning of the Second World War Scotts were firmly established as the largest producers of electric ranges in New Zealand but during the war years grenades and mortar-bomb cases, ammunition boxes and drinking mugs were made. Today, with the concentration on electric-range production, as many as 100 ranges at a time are on the Atlas assembly-line. Scott’s plant is one of the best equipped for its size in the country. In the mass-

production system stove “skeletons” continually move along the lines on trolleys. As the “skeleton” moves hundreds of components are

added. The big items fitted include stove tops, wiring, gaskets, elements, drawers, doors, and switch panels. Some of the components such as switch panels and doors, have already been assembled in other sections of the plant. Each electric component is given a high voluge test of 1000 volts to ensure safety and protect Scott’s good name. The firm is proud of its ranges. In the old days, it was equally proud of the reputation of its seed-strippers, Cambridge rollers, windmills, vertical steam-engines and agricultural implements.