During college in the 50s I worked part-time for International Nickel Co. (INCO) in Birmingham (England) and at that time they were, natch, looking for new uses for nickel since the Korean War had ended and the huge amounts of the metal used in everything from bullet jackets to high-grade steels had slumped.
They had originated a process using three nickel layers under the chromium. I was just a chemist (or rather a chemist to be), but one of the metallurgists explained to me how the nickel layers were different and each had its own beneficial properties. Until then I had no idea just how thin the chromium is; just a few microns thick. INCO owned (probably still does) the largest nickel ore mine in the free world, in Sudbury, Ontario.
INCO, which was originally called Mond Nickel after the name of the chemist who first worked out how to extract the metal from its ore (before which it was thrown away as an aggravating contaminent of copper refining - the name comes from the German kunfer nickel, or "the devil's copper"), were instrumental in making the jet engine a practical motive power for aircraft. It's true that the Germans put the first jet fighter into the air, but their engines had an operating life of only a few hours because the turbine blades were made from stainless steel. The high temperatures and centrifugal force of the turbine rotating at 15,000 rpm and up caused the blades to "creep," or elongate. You could accommodate for this by making the clearance large, but this made for an inefficient engine with limited power, and soon even that would disappear and unless they rebuilt the engine it would self-destruct. The Germans, amazing engineers as they are, never conquered this problem.
The first British engines were also inefficient for different reasons, but they soon improved on this and also came to have an operating life of hundreds, and later thousands, of hours, due to the use of INCO developed Inconel (from INCO and nickel), a high nickel content, austenitic superalloy that resists creep. Some of the early 1940s engines, like the DeHavilland Ghost and R-R Derwent, were still in use in the 1950s.
The Soviets, also amazing engineers, captured many intact German jet engines but also could not counteract creep in their own jets, until the lunatic post-war British socialist government, in a gesture of friendship with their commie counterparts, sold or gave them several Derwents. The nice commies then copied them and put them into mass production (without paying a license of course), and that was the engine that powered the MIG15that shot down many British and America airmen.
One interesting experience I remember at INCO was during the summer of 1958. There was a Black & Decker electric drill that anyone could borrow and take home for use. And it had no power cord! This was the progenitor of today's ubiquitous cordless drill. You have to be old enough to undestand what an eye-opening revelation this was. I recall showing it to my dad, who thought I was playing some kind of trick.
INCO scientists had evolved a way of making a nickel/cadmium rechargeable battery like a kind of jelly roll, with the electrolyte sandwiched between layers of the two metals, then rolling it up and stuffing it into the drill's handle. We had to write down the number and diameter of holes we had bored, in a log book, so that the R&D dept. could evaluate the drill's capacity. Of course the thing became much more practical when the replaceable battery came out.
Another thing I recall was that they always had a lot of automotive parts in to test the nickel layer, and after they had bored a small hole in and done their testing the item was up for grabs. Most popular were the 5 1/2" and 7" Lucas spot and fog lamps. I had two of each on my first car.
The R&D plating shop used to have fun plating all sorts of non-metal things by first coating them in graphite. People brought their kiddies' first shoes in to be nickel plated, of course, but they also plated all sorts of eccentric things, like pencils, books and even a condom. There was one obnoxious guy who had had a coffee cup made with his name on it, as an ego trip, and one day when he was away they plated that, too. While they were about it they plated the saucer and a spoon, so the whole thing was one solid piece. It was a fun place for young, iresponsible guys to work, in those pre-Politically-Correct days. One of the managers walked with a cane, and we decided to play a joke on him. Each day, when he was in the crapper (which he visited daily like clockwork, carrying in the morning paper) we would take the ferrule off the end of the cane and saw about 1/16" off, then replace the ferrule. Every few days one of us, in rotation, was primed to remark that he was looking taller, and asked if he was taking medication or working out. This went on for about a month, and he even went to the works clinic to be measured several times, until he tumbled to the joke. If he'd found out who had done it the perp would probably have been fired.
I would probably have made INCO a career place if I hadn't decided to join the RAF.
) and among the NOS parts he had assembled were a couple of bumpers still in the protective wrap from the manufacturer. And he only wanted $325 for the pair.
