Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-10

good deal is written relative to the
cost of the material entering into the con-
struction of the up-to-date automobile
some of 1t correct, much of it incorrect"
an automobile man recently said. AN an
alysis would reveal the fact thu even were
all Of the material Of the highest possible
grade it would not account for the differ
ence in price Of the high and the low-grade
car 1t reminds US somewhat of the famous
saying of fooling the people, etc, but In
this particular case it is the public's own
fault and they have practically asked to
be fooled by demanding high-sounding
names for material, the value Of which
they are not familiar with, and ignoring
what every engineer knows to be the prime
factor in the lasting ability of an automo-
bile or any other piece of machinery, and
that is the labor.
I'm all the essential features of a car
the labor used must of necessity be. and Is,
skilled, and naturally high priced. the value
of the resultant effort being consequently.
not governed by material cost but by the
much more expensive labor cost. Take,
for instance, the crank shaft in four
cylinder engine. In the best practice this
has five bearings, their area varying ac-
cording to the diameter of the shaft and
the work it is called upon to do. These
bearings are made of hard babbitt. or as
it is generally called, non-friction metal.
These are cast either in boxes formed in
the crank case proper or in separable boxes,
which are lined up in the engine base.
These bearings are reamed while screwed
in place, and each of them afterward
scraped to an exact fit on the whole area
of the crank shaft bearing. This, of course,
has to be done first on the engine bearings
in the bed. and a similar procedure fol-
lowed on the bearing caps. SO that when
completed the babbitt touches every part
of the entire area of the bearing. The bah
bitt is then grooyed to permit of lubrica-
ton. This construction cannot be followed
In what are known popular-priced cars,
the practice then being to ream the babbtt
in the first place and to then tap in the
crank shaft with a copper or rawhide mall
let. so that a fairly close At is obtained
the same course being followed with the
bearing cap. which Is In turn hammered on
to the shaft. The great objection to this
method is the uneven density the ham,
mering process gives to the babbitt, the
high spots by reason of the hammering
they receive being naturally more dense
and hard than those spots that did not re-
ceive similar attention. The bearing, conse-
quently. wears unevenly. lubricates but i'm
perfectly. and Is seldom satisfactory
From records obtained from number of
the factories where the relative merits of
the two methods were recently analysed and
compared, it was found that by the proper
or scraping-in method two skilled work.
men could. under the m1st favorable cir
cumstances. with every necessary tool and
with a perfectly true shaft with ground
a day of ten hours. The average is not
quite equal to this, but when compared
with the tapping-in process, by which one
man fits 81 ten four-cylinder crank shafts
per day, the Importance of this close atten-
ton to detail and regard for high-grade work
becomes easily apparent and makes or mars
the pleasure of the motorist."