Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-04-07
SKILL REQUIRED
ON CAMSHAFT
Many Processes Necessary to
Make a Single Piece on
Studebaker

There isn't any manufacturing
plant more interesting than a motor
car factory. In fact, it is little short
of marvellous to watch the speed with
which the various parts which go to-
ward making up a spick and span
1917 automobile are manufactured
While in Detroit recently, a represent
ative of this paper visited the great
Studebaker factories and inspected
every process of manufacture from
the foundry to the assembling depart
ment. One of the most interesting
manufacturing operations was the
processes necessary to make a single
part, the camshaft used in the new
Series 8 Studebaker cars. This part
is difhcult-o one to manufacture, yet
MANY of the operations in it's making
are, the same as those required to
manufacture the axle shaft, transmits
sion shaft, propeller and many of the
other 1000 parts that go to make the
finished Studebaker.
The steel for the camshaft comes
to the factory in bars. This bar is
cut off by gigantic shears into billets
about foot long. The billet is heat
ed to a mallable state just as the
blacksmith of old heated the piece of
steel to make a horseshoe, but the
camshaft, instead of being hammer
ed into shape on an anvil. is placed on
the die of a great steam hammer.
The die is the shape of the cam
shaft-the hammer which strikes the
steel is guided to strike exactly the
same spot on the die each time. The
face of the hammer is also cut in the
shape of the camshaft. This great
hammer is operated by steam, strik-
ing 1t a smashing blow. In a few
strokes the billet of steel is elongated
and shaped roughly into it's final
form. At the same time the blows of
grain of the steel together and re-
fine 1t. After this operation the shaft
is allowed to cool in the air. 1t is
then heated again slowly to 100 de-
greeS Fahrenheit in a furnace, where
the heat is electrically measured. This
heat treatment readjusts the grain of
the steel after the strains of the drop
forge hammer.
1t then goes through several lathes
which still further shape it to it's final
| form. For this process it is first cut
TO length and centered so that it can
be turned accurately, and the grind
ing machines must be especially made
to machine the cam surface into a
parabolic shape-that is, curved some
ing processes the shaft is again trued,
| inspected and, if it passes muster,
packed in a heat-treating furnace,
where it is kept for eleven hours un-
der temperature of 100 degrees
Fahrenheit. Under this heat q chem
ical substance slowly permeates the
surface grain of the steel and, when
the steel is fixed by the next heat
treatment, makes its surface diamond
hard" after that treatment. So skill
fully has the steel expert developed
this process that extreme hardness
has been secured without the shaft
being made brittle. But, bear in mind,
the hardness extends only just below
the surface of the steel. The core of
the shaft is still as touch as the
horseshoe nail.
AS a last finishing process it is
cleaned, Strengthened inspected and
then passed on to the final grinders.
| Here it is ground to shape under
emery wheels. Automatically, the
emery wheels are guided over the
curved surface of the cams so as to
insure accuracy to the one-thousandth
of an inch. On the siX-cylinder Stude-
baker cars there are twelve cam sur
| faces-siX for the intake valves and
| six for the exhaust valves. In ad-
dition, there are four bearing sur
faces. This makes sixteen surfaces to
be gorund, all to perfect dimensions
and all in perfect line within one
thousandth of an inch. In the Series
IS Studebaker -Four" there are four
surfaces less.