MOTOR PLATES

Southland Times, Issue 19831, 30 March 1926, Page 8

MOTOR PLATES

BEING MADE IN WELLINGTON. SPECIAL MACHINERY BUILT FOR PURPOSE}. Following upon a complaint from Auckland that the acceptance by the Government of a New Zealand contract for the supply of motor registration plates, as against a Canadian tender, would cost the motorists of the Dominion an additional £7500, and a subsequent statement by the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. R. F. Bollard) as to the delays in manufacture and that the extra cost to motorists was exa gg era ted, an Evening Post reporter called upon the Wellington contractors, the Precision Engineering Company, and was by the courtesy of the 'manager (Mr R. Burns) conducted through the workshops. The contract with the Government calls for 131,500 pairs of car plates and 31,000 pairs of motor-cycle plates, and the total amount of steel plate used will be something over sixty tons, so that the job is a really big one. The contract was accepted by the Government on 10th October, and from that point the company had to start from the ground level and work upwards to the desired production of 10,000 plates per day. No suitable machinery was available in New Zealand and Australia for several of the essential processes, and dies, presses, carriers, enamelling baths, and ovens were specially constructed. The presses are powerful machines, each of the two presses for motor-cycle plates exerting a pressure of 25 tons, and the carplate press exerting one of 100 tons. Another press rounds off corners and pierces the screw holes with one blow. It is stated that a common practice in Canadian and American factories is to press a pair of plates one above the other, but these pair-pressed plates are of No. 27 gauge, whereas the New Zealand-made plates are of 24 gauge, about one-third heavier and stouter. On account of the limited time available the order for steel plate was necessarily cabled; careful calculation was made as to the degree of “drawing” which would take place in the die presses, and the finishing clipper machine was designed in accordance with that calculation. Actually the “draw” was less, and the clipper had to be re-designed. Wherever it is possible operations are carried out automatically, and throughout the factory the work is “efficiently routed,” its course being from the preliminary cleaning bath to the presses and clippers, the japanning baths (where each plate received a double coat), the first stoving oven, the rollers which whiten the embossed numbers, and the final stoving. Plates are subject to inspection by a Government official, and even during the initial runs of the plant -the discards amounted to only three per thousand. Three shifts of men are working right round the clock. The plate is “100 per cent. British,” 15 per cent, representing raw material from England, and 85 per cent. New Zealand material and labour. The new plate carries standard size white numerals upon a jet black ground and certainly appears to be more legible than the 1925 issue of white figures on a green ground. The “N.Z.,” which was never popular with motorists, as being quite unnecessary and merely confusing, since it had the effect of rather smothering the first numeral, is omitted from the new plates. The enamel has a fine finish and withstands any ordinary scratching, even with a pen knife point. The rate of production is now well on towards 10,000 per day.