The Washington herald., 1916-04-23
MAKING OF TIRES
SHOWS WONDERS
Trip Through Gibney Factory
= Reveals Manufacture in
Its Intricacies.
FROM GUM TO RETAILER
Every Test that Science Can Evolve
Applied to Thousands of lngre-
dients in Solid Tires.

country roads! imagination runs. flot
with interest in the slow processes of
Brazil, the producer. OF pure Para rubber, !;
or in Peru. the trafic ground Of the l.
caoutchouc ball OF commerce, while start !!
ing a tour of the factory of the Gibney /
Tire & Rubber Company. Conshohocken, /
Pa.
The record Of dozen romsnces may
lie hidden in the black balls that come 1
.up froom the tropics-stories from the |
golden sunshine of the Inca princes, and l
forecast of great commercial creations to
be carried on its elastic body to success
in colder climes. lima ginGtion Is promptly |
resolved into everyday reality, however.
when the crude gum cellars are ap-
proached-and bin after bin Of the rubber
biscuits" fashioned after enlarged foot
balls, dirty, notched and gnarled, are dis
closed in interminable array.
Crude gum, bought by standard grade
in the open market, like metal or wool or
other basis commodities, explains Presi-
dent James L. Gibney. and one is facing
the crude base of automobile tires in it's
most silent, forbidding aspect, and rob-
bed Of any halo of imagination that
might have been associated with 1t.
How Tires Are Made.
Practicalties, too, are evidenced on
every hand-vulcanizers destined to have
finished tires, carry their plungers many
feet below the cellar and rear their ca
pacious bulk through the floors above
Then there are water pumps to send !
their cooling draughts coursing through
the factory, and, equally important in its |
way, is the accumulation, which keeps
hydraulic pressure all through the build
ings where it is required. In close prox-
unity to the engine room, with its power
plant-the reservoir Of force for the pro-
gressive conversion from crude gum to
the finished tire"
Now it Is the turn of some Of the
crude gum to be started on its Jour
ney. Hacked and torn apart from its
football shape for the easier handling
1t is fed into the Cracker" machine
and passing between cylindrical drums
ribbed and resisting, the chunks of
Para are cracked, chewed and chawed
and passed on to the "sheeter' ma
chine for more refined cleaning and T.
rolling into sheets
1t is severe treatment and, when
ready for the vacuum dryers, the
crude gum has lost all sembIance to
its original self, the last touch of inn
agination is dispelled and the puffy,
spongy India rubber" Is quickly to-,
assume commercial form. Sheeted in +,
trays, it is dried under hot tempera-i
lures that experts have passed upon
and water drawn off, it is ready fort
compounding. There is yet a slower
method of drying, in which the sheet
ed rubber is suspended from racks and
subjected to warm air, where il hangs
in all its Para surity preparatory to!
going to the compound room.
But one 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 every
day commerce can be thoroughly un-
dcrstood.
What transforms this pure rubber
yielding and nonresisting, flexible and
spongy, into the tough, enduring tire
material, with the resistance OF a pack
of bulldogs and resiliency that in
sures the easiest possible riding for
its future tremendous burdens?
what Makes Finished Article.
thousand and one ingredients may
enter into the solid tire of today
each ingredient has been through the
searching test of physics, chemistry.
mathematics and what not. Nothing is
left TO chance. Every test that science
and human ingenuity can devise it
applied to each and every ingredient
the proportions are figured out to
mathematical certainty to achieve the
physical results desired.
1t is in the retreats of the scientists,
worthy of the alchemists of old. that
the compound formula comes forth.
and, scrupulously guarded, becomes the
guiding star for the work of the COM
pound room. Here it is that the COM
pounding proportions of pure rubber,
sulphur and other ingredients are
weighed out and the physical making
of the tire proper continues.
Direct from the compound room,
now tagged and weighed to a nicety.i
nd diGti n
tire in embryo goes into mixing"
and milling machine and is knead-
ed and rolled and mixed on hot cylin-
dcrs and is prepared, like sheets OF
dark dough. for the calendar room.
Yet another process toward the finish
ed tire is taking place in another part
of the factory. The steel base on
which the tire is built must be cop
per-plaeed - rubber compounds do not
take kindly to steel-and the copper
plating department becomes an i'm
portant factor.
Then the bases are measured with
marvellous exactitude-they must come
within the finest fraction to be accepta-
ble-and they are ready for a cement !
coating as the closing preliminary to
the building of the tire.
Goes Into Calendar Room.
Now 1t is the calendar room and the
hard rubber base is applied to the saw
like corruscations of the metal channel
base. It is rolled into place with auto
matte precision and the tires given |
fixity Of foundation and a ragidity of |
basic resistance that road wear cannot |
weaken.
The next operation follows quickly |
enough-the tread goes onto the hard !
rubber base to the required thickness |
1t is a rapid building-up of the tire but |
everything is gagged to a nicely. Prompt |
ly removed from the calendar room, the |
tire must now be weighed and trimmed |
to an exact fraction There can be no |
leeway-the moulds are exact and the |
tire going into them can carry so much |
material-no more, no less.
Vulcanizing is the last, but by no !
means the least process in the making |
of the tire. 1t is the curing Of the tire |
the final welding, as it were, of the chan |
mel, the hard rubber base and the COM /
pound tread into a concrete, composite, |
burden-carrying whole. |
The tires are placed in individual |
mods, and these in turn are stacked |
into the cylindrical vulcanizers, which |
extend their bulk through the several |
factory floors. With the lids clamped |
down the heat is turned on. This vulcan |
Izing process Is timed with the precision |
of seconds-the chemists have fixed the !,
heat and time with their customary ex-