Pottery

Pottery Without A Wheel > .

A bunker is opened which contains large mass of clay. Pottery teacher grabs a large piece of clay and drops it on to a board. He then cuts it in half with a wire cutter. He prepares the clay by kneading it on a board. He slices the clay to show that there are no air holes. He rolls a small piece of clay into a ball and makes a thumb pot. C/U of mans hands as he makes a small pot. Child rolls clay into a coil and winds it round onto a circular base. He then uses his thumb to smooth the clay to join it to the base. Various stages of coil pots are shown. C/U of hands joining the coils to the pots. Coils are also used to make models. We see a duck (?) being made. C/U of craftsman's hands as he moulds the head of the duck. Making tiles. A mould is placed on the table and clay is pressed into the mould. A metal tool is used to scrape away excess clay. A wet sponge us used to soften the clay. Once all the excess clay is trimmed away, the tile is decorated with slip. The tile is dipped into a bowl of slip. A darker coloured slip is painted on to the tile. Another tile is decorated by cutting away the shape of a cockerel with a sharp tool. The objects we have seen being made are displayed with some other pottery objects.

Railways & Locomotives

Locomotives & railways

locomotives 2nd front
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_weWCHf9sQ

Building A British Steam Locomotive: Power To Order - 1941 Educational Film - S88TV1
Power to Order - Engineering and manufacturing steam locomotives at the Doncaster works in Britain in 1940s. With LMS 8F 2-8-0 Freight Locomotive seen and used in WW2. Foundry forging in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTvPP8Yhz_A

laying tracks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXqk380cHwE

joints & junctions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjraY7L9Jig

railway tunnel construction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9y7WQjNjik

Steam Trains - Shunter Blacks Night Off - 1941 British Trains in World War Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1QY2A2C5pc

1947 - Relaying Train Tracks In The 1940's - Railways in Britain Educational Documentary - S88TV1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyvVHE-37AU

1950 - STEAM LOCOMOTIVES IN HEAVY SNOW - VINTAGE FILM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMAEeHGRHUE

aerial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VuKrVRve3k

Trains & Steam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOGYZC-IJPQ

Railways - playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtakTnKQQMCwiEm0N0MnFvY7BrY_AJW57

Britain's greatest machines
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWZd-gHTah5CuJVlQgNFmk5jeh0-7mNx

Britain's Greatest Machines With Chris Barrie - S02

Rolls-Royce - London, Derby, Crewe

Merlin - Engine that won the war > .

The Insane Engineering of the Spitfire - Real Engineering > .

Rolls-Royce Merlin - one of the most important engines of WW2 > .

Rolls-Royce & Merlin: Famous Fighters, Shadow Scheme > . skip ad to World War 2 > .

1906-3-15: Rolls-Royce Limited established in Britain > .

Poor Boy Who Invented World's Most Luxurious Car - BusStor > .

Rolls-Royce - London, Derby, Crewe

The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later called Merlin following the company convention of naming its piston aero engines after birds of prey.

After several modifications, the first production variants of the PV-12 were completed in 1936. The first operational aircraft to enter service using the Merlin were the Fairey Battle, Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. More Merlins were made for the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber than for any other aircraft; however, the engine is most closely associated with the Spitfire, starting with the Spitfire's maiden flight in 1936. A series of rapidly applied developments, brought about by wartime needs, markedly improved the engine's performance and durability.

One of the most successful aircraft engines of the World War II era, some fifty marks of Merlin were built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, Crewe and Glasgow, as well as by Ford of Britain at their Trafford Park factory, near Manchester.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin

The Rolls-Royce Griffon is a British 37-litre (2,240 cu in) capacity, 60-degree V-12, liquid-cooled aero engine designed and built by Rolls-Royce Limited. In keeping with company convention, the Griffon was named after a bird of prey, in this case the griffon vulture.

Design work on the Griffon started in 1938 at the request of the Fleet Air Arm, for use in new aircraft designs such as the Fairey Firefly. In 1939 it was also decided that the engine could be adapted for use in the Spitfire. However, development was temporarily put on hold to concentrate efforts on the smaller Merlin and the 24-cylinder Vulture, and the engine did not go into production until the early 1940s.

The Griffon was the last in the line of V-12 aero engines to be produced by Rolls-Royce with production ceasing in 1955. Griffon engines remain in Royal Air Force service today with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and power the last remaining airworthy Avro Shackleton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Griffon

Crewe

The British government built a shadow factory in Crewe in 1938 for Rolls-Royce where they could build their Merlin and Griffon aero engines. In 1946 car production was moved there for space to construct bodies and to leave space for aero engines at Derby. The site was bought from the government in 1973. It is now Bentley Crewe

Second World War

Production focussed on aero engines but a variant of the Merlin engine, known as the Meteor, was developed for the Cromwell tank. The Meteor's development completed in 1943 the same team at the Belper foundry restarted work on an eight-cylinder car engine widening its uses and it became the pattern for the British Army's B range of petrol engines for post war combat vehicles in particular in Alvis's FV600 range, Daimler's Ferret, Humber's Hornet and Pig and Austin's Champ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Limited

Rolls-Royce Crewe

In preparation for war, Rolls Royce and the British Government searched for a location for a shadow factory to ensure production of aero-engines. Crewe, with its excellent road and rail links, as well as being located in the northwest away from the aerial bombing starting in mainland Europe, was a logical choice. Crewe also had extensive open farming land. Construction of the factory started on a 60-acre area on the potato fields of Merrill's Farm in July 1938, with the first Rolls Royce Merlin aero-engine rolling off the production line five months later. 25,000 Merlin engines were produced and at its peak, in 1943 during World War II, the factory employed 10,000 people.

Car production

With the war in Europe over and the general move towards the then new jet engines, Rolls Royce concentrated its aero engine operations at Derby and moved motor car operations to Crewe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley_Crewe#Rolls-Royce_Crewe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Motors

Rolls-Royce Limited - Wikipedia

Rosies - Women in Manufacturing

USA - real story behind Rosie the Riveter - Vox > .  

Myth of Rosie the Riveter - On the Homefront - WW2 > .

Was Rosie the Riveter a Real Person? > .

Rosie the Riveter was a cultural icon of WW2, representing the women who worked in factories and shipyards during WW2, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. Rosie the Riveter is used as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage. Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories. Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a Hollywood movie in 1944. 

Rosie the Riveter - Rockwell (43-5) ..
Rosies - Women in Manufacturing ..
We Can Do It! - iconic poster (43-2) ..

• Naomi Parker Fraley .
• Australian Women's Land Army .
• Canary girl—British women working in munitions .
• G.I. Generation .
• Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl—the earlier Canadian equivalent
• Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring, a 1943 painting showing a female British war worker
• United States home front during World War II .
• Women in the workforce .
• Woman's Land Army of America ("farmettes")
• Women's Land Army—British farm workers ("land girls")
• Women's roles in the World Wars .
• Work ethic .
• Margaret Bourke-White .

Rubber & Plastic

.Vulcanized Rubber discovered purely by accident - 2 bit > . skip ad > .

Securing rubber supply? Fordlandia - Henry Ford's failed Amazonian city - Bus In > .

Rubber & Plastic

Supply-Chain Issues 2021 - Natural Rubber ⇝

In the 1840s, sulphur was used to vulcanise rubber, stabilising it and making tyre production possible.

A closely-related material, gutta-percha, is a natural latex. This early thermoplastic was used from the mid-1800s, enabling telegraph wires to be laid at the bottom of the sea and electrical wires to be insulated. Other natural polymers resembling modern plastic were developed from cellulose, a natural polymer found in wood. The first, parkesine, was developed to produce celluloid in 1870, a medium for cinema film.

How Nylon Was Discovered - Ri > .

A brief history of plastic - TedEd > .

Plastics in WW2 - TedEd > .

But it was during the 20th century that plastics really took off. In 1907, Leo Baekeland invented the first synthetic plastic, bakelite, from fossil fuel-based chemicals. These revolutionary plastics were easy to mould and could be quickly mass produced. These materials were popular, cheap and built to last. The pace of development increased and by 1935 other polymers, such as polystyrene, polyester, PVC, polythene and nylon were all being manufactured from fossil fuels."
https://theconversation.com/plastic-is-now-part-of-our-planets-fabric-a-scientist-and-archaeologist-discuss-what-happens-next-106019 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GirvOmjPZrc

Plastics: "Origin and Synthesis of Plastics Materials" 1945 US Office of Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_gDAjkfrz4

A brief history of plastics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW3OGMZ1bWc

How A Crazy Laboratory Accident Helped Create Plastic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML0PN_zvML8

History of Plastics: Plastics in World War II: Plastic