GB435163A - Improvements in or relating to the manufacture of hand wheels, such, for example, as motor car steering wheels - Google Patents

Abstract

435,163. Hand wheels. SOC. ITALIANA PIRELLI, 21, Via Fabio Filzi, Milan, Italy. Feb. 25, 1935, Nos. 6043 and 6044. Convention dates, Feb. 24, 1934 and Jan. 15, 1935. [Class 80 (iv)] Hand wheels, e.g. motor car steering wheels, are made, at least as to the rim, of a rigid stratified material consisting of superposed layers of hard-rubber-treated fabric united by vulcanization. The fabric may be either woven or cord fabric and may be composed either wholly or in part of asbestos fibres. The fabric is frictioned with a hard-rubber coating, and may be skim-coated, i.e. doubled, for example by calendering, with a hardrubber mixing. The united fabrics may be covered with a surface of hard rubber preferably moulded and vulcanized on to the fabric base, and the surface may be glossy and obtained by the process described in Specification 432,680, [Group V]. Alternatively the wheel may be moulded substantially in the rough and trimmed and finished after the cure. In a preferred form, the wheel comprises a rim 1, Fig. 3, composed of an annular core of hard rubber, a hub and spokes composed as above of layers 2, 3 of hardrubber-treated fabric united by vulcanization, the spokes 4 being connected to the core of the rim by the layers of fabric being wrapped therearound and the whole, as regards the spokes and rim, being covered with at least one laver of hard-rubber-treated fabric which may in turn be covered with a surface layer or film of plain hard rubber. If desired, the wheel may be composed, as regards the spokes and rim, of layers of fabric stamped from sheets previously treated as described. According to a further feature, a portion of the fabric, otherwise all hard-rubber-treated may, for the purpose of imparting anti-vibration properties, be rubber treated with soft rubber, preferably as regards the innermost layers. In Fig. 4, the wheel is composed wholly of the layers of treated fabric, the hub and its connection to the spokes being strengthened by metallic reinforcing means 5, 6, e.g. of a light alloy. The reinforcement may serve as a mounting for such parts as electric switches, control handle of change speed mechanism &c. The surface coating of hard rubber may be of coloured rubber.