800 TRUCKS.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18158, 24 October 1930, Page 6

800 TRUCKS.

MACDONALD MINE. i MASS PRODUCTION IN HAMILTON. TOWN BENEFITS IN WAGES.' A rattle like that of Vickers guns in action may be heard any day in Bryce Street, Hamilton, where Messrs J. J. Niven and Company are engaged on the mass production of 800 steel trucks for Use in the MacDonald mine of Glen Afton. This is probably the first instance of its kind where so large an order of such a nature has been placed with a 'New Zealand firm in competition with outside ifianufacturors The Contract price is £12,000, and £6,000 of this will be paid in wages in Hamilton, where all the trucks are being made. The job has necessitated the employment of 14 additional special hands, who will be kept busy until about February. The most modern methods are being employed In the work and it is interesting to follow the process from the plain sheet and bar metal to the finished article. Blacksmiths, rivetters, welders and fitters are .working at a very rapid rate as they drill £TTe plates, fashion the haulage clips, make the couplings, rivet the sides and ends, seal the Joints and fit on the trolleys. An oil fired, blast furnace, the most modern machine of its kind, is capable of beating to the required temperature 5,000 rivets an hour, and these are capped over In place almost as quickly as they can be lifted from the furnace, by high speed pneumatic rivetting machines. The encircling bands on top of the trucks are welded the latest electric process, which ensures a perfect joint.

In a Perfect Cyole. The work is carried through in a perfect cycle,' the trucks all being made to one pattern. The engineers first completed a truck in every detail and then pulled it to pieces, using the various parts as templates, from which all the others are made. Each part of very truck is, therefore, an exact replica of the same part in any other truck. The drilling of the plates, the hammering out of the bars, the carving of the wooden under-carriage and the fitting of the wheels are all done with perfect precision," and though Henry Ford may carry out his mass production on a “ somewhat larger ” scale, the system is similar in principle. Hamilton will benefit in wages alone, as already stated, to the extent of £6,000 by the work being carried out here.