 Infra-red
heating using specially designed 250-watt electric lamps was developed
by the lamp and lighting department for the quick drying of paint
and fillers on aircraft, the first plant being installed in a Spitfire
factory. Another equipment was supplied to the factory that later
turned out the record-breaking Gloster Meteors. The industrial use
of tubular-sheathed heating elements expanded considerably, an important
application being for preventing condensation in service equipment.
Nearly 300,000 radiant boiling plates were made during the war.
A
wide range of testing apparatus came from the research department.
Among the most important was magnetic crack detection equipment,
which was made in special types for testing items ranging from small
components to engine mounting frames for aircraft.
Among
the many other normal types of product in demand were, for example,
auxiliary turbo-generator sets for cruisers, motors for submarines,
and a range of d.c. marine starters redesigned to stand the severe
shocks of naval service. At the other end of the scale, miniature
instruments were turned out for the services at rates up to 250,000
a year.
NEW
BUILDINGS AND DISPERSALS Manufacturing space required for new work
undertaken during the war was provided chiefly by new buildings.
These were designed and constructed, generally in record time, under
the supervision of the works engineer, W. L. Beeby, whose department
acted as main contractor, and they now form permanent additions
to the Trafford Park works. Nearby premises were also taken over,
and others further away for the dispersal of some offices and workshops.
By
far the largest addition was the aircraft factory. This was built,
starting in 1939, on land bought by George Westinghouse forty years
before. (Some original boundary posts are still in position.) With
the second section completed in the following year, it covered a
total area of 800,000 sq. ft. and is still outstanding for its shop
length of more than a quarter of a mile.
Extensions
to the West works, built in 1937 to deal with the growth ofswitchgear
business, were taken over for the manufacture of searchlights and
sound locators, and further extensions turned in the same way to
Government work. A separate factory was built nearby in 1938 and
was ready for radar manufacture in the phenomenally short time of
thirteen weeks; this shop with extensions completed in 1940 and
1943 provided an area of 125,000 sq. ft. known as 'West works 4,
5, and 6', which was responsible for the whole of the Company's
radar production.
A
building to the south of D aisle, erected in 1939 for impregnation
processes and subsequently doubled in size, was used for the fabrication
of mountings for anti-aircraft guns. In 1942 most of this work was
transferred to a 28,000-sq. ft. extension of the tank shop.
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