Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-04-22
TIRE MAKING
IS INTERESTING
Dozen Romances May Be Back
of Every Auto Role" Turned
Out on Market

From crude gum to the finished Glib
ney solid tire, ready for it's seemingly
endless miles of city traffic, of subur-
ban streets and country roads,
Imagination runs riot with interest in
the slow processes of collecting this
crude gunI~tn far away Brazil. the pro-
ducer of pure Para rubber or in Peru,
the traffic ground of the coautchouc
ball of commerce, while starting a tour
of the factory of Gibney Tire and Rub
ber Company, Conshohocken, Pa, U.
| S. A
! The record of a dozen romances may
/ lie hidden in the black balls that come
! up from the tropics-stories from the
| golden sunshine of the Inca princes,
! and forecast of great commercial crea-
| tions to be carried on it's elastic body
| to success in colder climes.
Imagination is promptly resolved in
to everyday reality, however, when the
crude gum cellars are approached-and
bin after bin of the rubber biscuits"
fashioned after enlarged footballs,
enlarged, dirty, notched and gnarled,
are disclosed in interminable array.
Crude gum, bought by standard
grade In the open market. like metal
explains President James L. Gibney,
and one is facing the crude base of
Gigney tires In its most silent, for
bidding aspect, and robbed of any halo
of imagination that might have been
associated with 1t.
Practicalities, too, are evidenced on
every hand-vulvanizers, destined to
have so much to do in the conversion
of the contiguous crude rubber into the
finished tires, carry their plungers
many feet below the cellar and rear
their capacious bulk through the floors
above. Then there are water pumps
to spend their cooling draughts cours-
ing through the factory and, equally
| important in its way, is the accumula-
tor. which keeps hydraulic pressure all
through the buildings where it is re-
Iquired. In close proximity is the en-
| gine room, with its power plant-the
reservoir of force for the progressive
conversion from crude gum to the fin
ished Gibney tire"
Now 1t is the turn of some of the
crude gum to be started on it's journey.
Hacked and torn apart from its foot
! ball shape for the easier handling, it
is fed into the Cracker" machine, and
passing between cylindrical drums, rib
bed and resisting the chunks of. Para
are cracked, chewed and chawed and
passed on to the "sheeter" machine
/
into sheets.
1t is a severe treatment and, when
ready for the vacuum dryers, the crude
gum has lost all semblance to it's ori-
ginal self, the last touch of imagina-
ton is dispelled and the puffy, spongy
India Rubber" is quickly to assume
commercial form.
Sheeted in trays. it is dried under
hot temperatures that Gibney experts
have passed upon as being the ideal,
and, with moisture and water drawn
off, IT is ready for compromising. There
| is yet slower method of drying, in
which the sheeted rubber is suspended
| from racks and subjected to warm air,
where it hangs in all its Para purity
preparatory to going to the compound
room.
But we must visit other parts of the
! factory before the later processes of
the making of these sheets of pure
rubber into the truck tire of everyday
! commerce can be thoroughly under
stood.
What transforms this pure rubber.
yielding and nonresisting. flexible and
spongY, into the tough, enduring tire
material, with the resistance of a pack
of bull dogs and a resiliency that in
sures the easiest possible riding for it's
future tremendous burdens?
Enter the chemical laboratory. the
mathematician and the hard headed
Gibney formula of eXperience-indis-
pensable adjuncts of the modern mas
ter tire.
The actual making of Gibney tires
is a mechanical. methodical process,
but the making of the first Gibney tire
and its evolution through successive
stages as the tire making science ad-
vanced are their collective, hard-earn-
ed and well-guarded secrets of how?
The transformation is explained in
the wonderfully equipped physical and
chemical laboratories which are an inn
portant part of the Gibney plant. In
the former. miniature tires are made
in hundreds from the crude rubber to
the finished article, but they are only
made for testing purposes. From these
experimental tires the innermost sec
rets of rubber, and compounds into
which it could be made, to fit it for it's
life in commercial truck tires, have
been wrested
\ thousand and one ingredients may
enter into the solid tire of to-day
each ingredient has been through the
searching test of physics, chemistry,
mathematics and what not. If 1t is