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These Tailors Make Topcoats' for Turbines,
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South Pmupc^ma--For 40 years Oamance Shingler has been a tailor to turbine--those ftant steam-driven machines that provide power lor home* and factories.
Every turbine needs asbestos Insulating blankets to conserve the power-giving heat And be cause every turbine presents a special problem, every blanket
Is a custom-made job. Even though the castings on
certain types of turbines are Identical, the pipes on the out side are made to suit the genera ting station where the turbines re to be installed. Mr. Shingler has to design the Insulating blankets to fit these pipes.
His first step is to get che en
gineering drawings for etch new turbine. From these he learns the locations of all the pipes, knobs and whatnots he will have to keep in mind.
Heat Mr. Shingler takes huge sheets of paper, goes to the castings themselves, and makes a pattern -- just as a Parisian dress-designer makes patterns on a curvaceous model.
Outlines on Asfoestoo
From these paper patterns, outlines are traced on the asbes tos cloth used in making the blankets. A motor-driven cutter, like that used in the cutting
rooms of large clothing manu facturers, shears the heavy rock wool cloth into the weird shapes
needed to fit the many curves of the turbine castings
Because different classes of turbines operate at different tem
peratures the type of asbestos blanket differs according to the temperature Involved.
Blankets of asbestos cloth are good up to 990 degrees At that temperature such doth might crumble, so the "threads" in the doth are wires covered with asbestos
Though they are called blank ets, these turbine topcoats look more like mattresses They're actually two sheets of material with five-inch edges stitched to them. When s blanket is nearly complete. It is blown chock-full of glass wool.
Sewing Isn't Simple
Blsnkets like these aren't stitched up on gently-whir ring sewing machine like mother uses.'The turbine blankets are stitched with a thick cord made of asbestos wrapped around a heavy wire. The machine that does the sewing Is much like that used by a shoemaker.
Just as a mattress Is quilted
to keep the stuffing from shift ing or bunching, the asbestos blankets are tufted with steel
wire and washers. Some of these tufting "but
tons" have hooks on then, like the hook of a hook-andwye. When the blanket Is placed in position, wire Is laced back and forth between the hooks to hold the sections together.
Modem design has streamlined the turbines with sleek outer covers of metal, so the customer rarely sees the fine handicraft of Clamance Shingler and his associates. But be cause their job is done to such exactness, the customer has mors reasons to be sure his new turbine will operate efficiently.
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