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South Pacific Tyres; first 'Steelastic' machine, making steel 'breaker'.
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PhotographerUnknown
Description'Breaker' is a strong band under the tread of a radial tyre, and usually consist of two layers.
This machine fed brass-plated steel wire (typically strands consisting of two 0.3 mm wires twisted together) into an extruder. The strands can be seen at right; at left they emerge, inside a sheet of rubber and disappear into the cage, where rollers pull and cool the extruded sheet before it is cut and joined.
In the case of this Steelastic, there would be around 100 strands in a sheet 100 mm wide. The strands were cut at an angle of around 15-20 degrees, to whatever width was required for a tyre, and joined side-to-side to form a continuous sheet.
The hoses supply water which heats or cools the extrusion head.
This matches one of 7 images on a proof sheet.Date TakenUnknown
Description'Breaker' is a strong band under the tread of a radial tyre, and usually consist of two layers.This machine fed brass-plated steel wire (typically strands consisting of two 0.3 mm wires twisted together) into an extruder. The strands can be seen at right; at left they emerge, inside a sheet of rubber and disappear into the cage, where rollers pull and cool the extruded sheet before it is cut and joined.
In the case of this Steelastic, there would be around 100 strands in a sheet 100 mm wide. The strands were cut at an angle of around 15-20 degrees, to whatever width was required for a tyre, and joined side-to-side to form a continuous sheet.
The hoses supply water which heats or cools the extrusion head.
This matches one of 7 images on a proof sheet.
Date TakenUnknownDepicts or relates to
Part of
CollectionDunlop Prebble
About the original
ReferencePrebble 6FormatGreeyscale printSize203 x 152 mm
FormatGreeyscale printSize203 x 152 mmScanned byDon McLeod
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South Pacific Tyres; first 'Steelastic' machine, making steel 'breaker'.. Upper Hutt City Library, accessed 19/03/2026, https://uhcl.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/30422