Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/559

 Popular Science Monthly

��543

��The Rising Price of Auto- mobiles — Charge It to the War

THE policy of automobile manufacturers of yearly reducing the price of their cars has received a severe jolt. With steel, copper and rubber going out of the country as they have, the rising cost of these materials promises to sweep the price of the cars up with them.

Steel for forgings has gone up nearly three hundred per cent since the beginning of the war. Aluminum quota- tions are trebling those of two years ago. Leather, copper and other finishing materials have advanced from twenty-five to one hun- dred per cent. Even the cost of the labor, the largest single item in the manufac- ture of a motor car, : is con- siderably greater than it ever was before.

���The framework into which the concrete is of the permanent structure and hence need

��poured not be

��is a part removed

��The Overdriven Nail and the High Cost of Living

ONE wooden packing case is required with every twenty-four of the billions of cans that America uses in her canning industry each year. The expense of the cases, when everything is added up, is so great that packers are availing themselves of every invention or idea which promises to reduce it. One of the facts they have found out is the economy of properly adjusting the automatic case-nailing machines. When the strokes of these machines are even a fraction of an inch too long, the wood fibers are cut and the havoc is wrought which the ac- companying enlarged photograph well illus- trates. It seems a more economical plan to pay a workman to adjust the machine than to stand the expense of repairs.

��A Substitute for Forms in Concrete Roofs and Floors

THE necessity of erecting temporary wooden forms for concrete roofs and floors is avoided by the use of a metal sup- port which becomes a part of the permanent structure and which not only takes the place of reenforcing material but also helps carry the load. When the framework has been put up, large sheets of the metal work are laid over the supports and fastened ; then the concrete is poured, the under side cement plas- tered, and the job is complete.

Less time is required

than with the ordinary

forms. In addition

there is less expense for

labor and material, and

the concrete work may be

made lighter. The metal

material may also be used

for concrete work in other

e havoc wrought by an overdriven construction than that of

nail in the fibers of a packing case roofs and floors. t

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