Evening star., 1941-01-31

" 1He Quar-, Us making G Tour OF
oDtatton engine production plants.
This is the 11th in a series OF
articles. ...
BY JOSEPH S. EDGERTON,
Star Staff Correspondent.
DETROIT, Mich, Jan. S1.-There
VIII be no machine tool or raw ma
terial bottlenecks to delay the Ford
Motor Co.'S program of building air
craft engines for national defense,
according to the confident predic-
ton Of Charles E. Sorensen, Ford
production manager.
The big, heavy-set, gray-haired
Ford executive pulled out of his
pocket to back UP his prediction a
piece Of paper and a card he had
Just received showing graphically
the production and delivery schedule
of the 1,540 machines required to
build 4,235 Pratt e. Whitney twin
Wasp engines, under the company's
S122,000,00O Government contract.
On the card were delivery sched-
ules for 7 ,484 machine fixtures, such
as punches, dies, jigs, gauges and
chucks of which 2,426 have been
ordered and $50 completed, exactly
on schedule. All are to be delivered
before the end of March.
January Orders Delivered.
The machine schedule calls for 257
TO be delivered during January, 250
during February, 260 during March,
237 during April, 122 during May and
smaller numbers through September,
when the last four are to be re-
ceived. The January orders have
been received exactly on schedule
and those for succeeding months
have been so carefully planned there
will be no hitch, Mr.. Sorensen is
confident.
The full facilities of "the worlds
most productive 500 acres" as the
great Ford Rouge River plant is
known here, have been tapped to in
sure maintenance of raw materials
schedules. There never has been
doubt of ability to supply the neceS-
sary materials as they are required,
with the exception of magnesium,
for the light castings required in
airplane engine construction.
To make certain there would be
no magnesium castings shortage, the
Ford Motor Co. has built at Rouge
River one of the largest magnesium
foundries in the world and one OF
the few in America. Not only has
this foundry already assured an
adequate supply of castings for the
Ford aircraft engines; 1t has made
possible the production Of castings
for other companies engaged in de-
fense work and orders already are
being taken for deliveries to these
factories following completion of the
foundry next month.
Tons of Casting Per Month.
The $500 900 magnesium foundry
Is located not far from the s21 ,00o,-
600 engine plant the Fords are
building at the Rouge. Present
magnesihm foundry facilities of the
Nation are below requirements of
the aircraft program and the Ford
project will do much to overcome
this fundamental lack. Plans call
for the foundry to deliver a total
of 10000 pounds of magnesium
castings a month. Importance OF
magnesium alloy lies in high
strength and low weight. The alloy
is one-fourth the weight OF cast iron
and two-thirds that of aluminium.
Pound for pound, however, it is just
about as strong as cast iron. The
alloy consists of to 8 per cent
aluminium, ~ to 8 per cent zinc
and the remainder magnesium.
Mr.. Sorensen confirmed reports
that very few machines and tools
used in the automobile industry can
be adapted to aircraft engine manu-
facture. The big Ford aircraft
engine plant is being fooled from
the ground up-a process determined
to be quicker and cheaper than to
attempt to convert any of the auto
mobile machinery and tools. In this
respect, the Ford experience is
identical with that of General Mo-
tors Corp. in its Allison engine
project at Indianapolis and the
Packard Motor Co. here in Detroit.
Experience a Prime Asset.
The great contribution the auto
motive industry can make to the
aircraft program is not plant and
tool facilities, but experience in a
related line of production, on an
even larger scale, Mr.. Sorensen con-
frned.
Nor will the great Ford organiza-
ton itself produce many of the
machines and tools required for
producing aircraft engines, except
in some of the smaller types. Orders
for these machines and tools have
been let out by the Fords to the
companies which have been build
ing them for the aircraft industry
and which are acquainted with the
highly specialized problems in
volved.