It was only after strenuous efforts on our part that the Union Switch & Signal Co., of Swissvale, Pa., a member of the Westinghouse chain of factories, was induced to take up the Le Rhone contract. This project called for the production of 2,500 rotary Le Rhones of 80 horsepower each. Let us see how the manufacturers took this totally unfamiliar machine and went about it to reproduce it in this country.
One might think that it would be necessary only to take the French drawings, change the metric system measurements to our own scale of feet and inches, and proceed to turn out the mechanism. But it was not so simple as that. We did receive the drawings, the specifications, the metallurgical instructions and the like, but these we found to be unreliable and unsatisfactory from our point of view. For instance, according to the French instructions the metallurgical requirements for the engine crank-shaft called for mild steel. This was obviously incorrect; and if an error had crept into this part of the plans there was no telling how faulty the rest of them might be. So from the metallurgical standpoint alone this became a laboratory job of analysis and investigation. A sample engine had been sent to us from France. Every piece of metal in this engine was examined by the chemists to determine its proper constituents, and from this original investigation new specifications were made for the steel producers.
The drawings of the engine were quite unsatisfactory from the point of view of American mechanics. They were found to be incorrect, and there were not enough of them. Consequently this required another study on the part of engineers and a new set of drawings to be made up. All of this fundamental work monopolized the time of a large force of draughtsmen and engineers for several months, working under the direction of E. J. Hall and Frank M. Hawley. The engine could not be successfully built without this preliminary study, yet this is a part of manufacture of which the uninitiated have little knowledge.
THREE VIEWS OF BUGATTI 410-HORSEPOWER ENGINE.
