ALL-STEEL SALOONS

Taranaki Daily News, 21 March 1935, Page 13

ALL-STEEL SALOONS

METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION. ELIMINATION OF DRUMMING. One of the biggest problems that has faced the motor industry in the .production of all-steel body construction where the roof is incorporated in the body has been the elimination of “drumming.” It is stated that lessons learned in the control of sound vibration by radio engineers have been adapted to silencing the steel roofs. Radio engineering has shown that two vibrations of different frequencies imposed upon each other tend to eliminate each other. The steel room section is welded to the rest of the body to form one piece without possibility of expansion. Such structure is impervious to weather, and deterioration of the top should consequently be much less in evidence than the old type of construction in which a padded wiring centre was given a fabric covering.

By the Fisher method, the entire front end, from the instrument panel forward and including the comer posts at either side of the windshield, is a single steel assembly without any back panel. The one-piece steel roof is brought down to form the top of the steel frame around an enclosed luggage compartment. Quarter panels are curved to form sides. The steel floor with necessary moulding is the bottom. The sections are electrically welded together and reinforced by girders for rigid bracing.

The'Hudson plan flanges the sides of the top and laps the flanges so that the welded connexion forms a box trough around the entire roof. A rubber insert fills the box. forming a weathertight seal and at the same time an expansion point that relieves possible stresses.