Iam doing this post on behalf of my dad (David Johnson) he worked in the tool shop at SFM or English Steel as it was know at the river don works from 1968-1985.

Did anyone else work there in this time and have you got any storys, For example did you know that the underframe of Concorde was bulit there in 1968?

Was Sheffield Forgemasters once part of or what was left of Firth Brown's ???

I use to work on the 9.000 ton forging press as a muck man to you and me that was clearing the scale away when they had done forging. I also worked on the furnaces as a furnace man my job was to make sure the ingots was up to tempreture before they could be forged. I can remember a chap who worked there his nickname was snozze as he looked like snozzel durnate a famous holywood star, mind you you couldnt call him that otherwise he would throw something heavy at you and make it count. I also worked with a chap who was dead ringer for tommy cooper he use to have all the work force in laughter and the office staff as well cant think what they called him oh yes I know know kevin beaumont there was two other chaps I knew as well norman & danny barrett, norman was a muck man and his brother was a cod man, ie forging man he use to work on the other big forging presses. I had some happy times there one of my gaffers was a chap called ray bacon and other was an ex copper cant remember what they called him.I also use to work in the heat treatment as a slinger, the biggest job I ever worked on was a press leg for japan the ingot weighted about 600 tonnes and when the leg was finnished it was about 200 ft long and weighted about 300 tonnes.

I worked in Firth Browns melting dept from 1938 and it was 1983 when the River Don management took over and the Atlas Melting shop was shut down 13th Jan 1983,the old Norfolk melting shop was then reopened and finally closed May 1984

What I woud like to know, Who sank the ESC Navy?

Hi Bigkev - what exactly is a slinger? - ta G

well grantham, a slinger is a chap who use to sling the ingots in to the furnaces this was done with big steel chains and hooks you had to use a overhead crane to do it as some of the ingots could weight anything up to 200 tonnes, plus when you worked in the heat treatment the die bars or pipe moulds weighting sometimes 150 tonnes was white hot so you had to sling the chains on them to lift them. nearly every department had a slinger then there was the leading hand slinger who was in charge of a team say 6 of you. thats what a slinger is it was his job to put the ingots, slabs of steel, pipes in the places they had to go. I am surprised you didnt ask me what a cod man did he was they chap who was in charge of the forgings most of them use to nod there head back and forth or side to side this was to tell the press man to keep forging the steel nodding there head was to put pressure on the ingot so they could forge it, moving it side to side was to make sure the ingot was been forged all the way down. as it was so noise they couldnt talk so thats how they use to do it or sometimes they would lip read and use there hands to show what they wanted.

I served my time at Esc as a turner and worked for a time in the east m/c shop, we used to go through the melting shop to get out on milford street. there was a sandwich shop just outside the gates where we used to get bacon butties etc.
The crankshafts for the Spitfire were made there too.

Did you know the tall chap who wore a skirt in the East Mc Shop.

I often wondered what happened to him.

He smoked a big curly sherlock holmes style pipe, used to change into a kilt to go home.He was one of the union reps in there too. I don't know what happened to him tho as I left there to join the army. in the 70s.

A friend of mine "Bert Wharton" worked there from 1962-91. Anyone remember him?

Thanks Bigkev! G

Did anyone work on the overhead crane in the old Gun Plant.

How high is it?

It must be the highest crane in Sheffield if not the UK???


Happy Days!

I was told when I worked at ESC that it was the highest in the country and the shop was the only one in the country high enough to make the big gun barrels for the battleships.

my dad worked in the south machine shop top crane driver even if i say so my self he used to take me on the open nites to show me his over head crane he is now 85 and worked at esc bsc sf for 32 years he took early redundancy in the 80s :thumbsup:

Hi pop t. I use to work in the old gun plant shop it was the heat treatment place when I worked in there for a month and yes it was the highest overhead crane in the country I think it was something like 800 feet up, the lads who worked on the shop floor had to have a walkie talkie with the crane driver so they could tell him where to put the hot steel in the oil tanks, also one of the furnaces that was in the floor had a lift in it and it went down 9 floors to the bottom. that was one hell of a deep furnace. when I worked there one of the old hands told me a story about one of the old crane drivers that worked in there he had gone to the end of the crane track and went through one of the doors to have a breather and smoke his pipe when he fell off he landed on his feet but with the force of him hitting the floor his leg bones came through the top of his shoulders and killed him. some of them oil tanks in the gun plant shop held about 5 million gallons of oil and some had whale oil in them, I can remember having to run outside when they was putting the white hot steel in to the oil tanks as it use to bubble up the hot oil and spit out, the steel had to be kept in the oil tanks for about 4 hours and when they pulled it out you couldnt see anything for the smoke.

BigKev

thanks for your contributions, they certainly bring some memories back.

I worked on those whale oil tanks fitting new piping, pumps and valves so that the oil could be transferred from tank to tank.

This enabled the iol to be lowered before any hot dipping took place after years of overflows due to the oil biling over.

I also worked on the high crane from time to time doing inspections and annual checks and boy was it high up there.

Not for the faint hearted.

Can anyone remember the 25 ton Drop Stamp operating in the Stamp Shop?

Everytime it dropped the ground shook and the whistle from exhaust could be heard miles away.

Many a still night was interrupted by the sound of this stamp.

Many complaints came from the Wincobank area about this noise and various attempts to quieten the exhaust were attempted.

Love to hear anymore reminisces

Happy Days!

some people on this thread may be interested in this link;

http://www.qr8.co.uk/freeman/

Hi pop t, I can remember the 25 ton drop stamp in the hammer shop and yes it didnt half bang when it was working and that whistle of the exhaust I lived not far from the heavy stamp shop just down carbrook street and some nights I could'nt sleep with it banging it seem to me that they worked more on it at night then during the day time. so I asked to go on nights for good I could then get some sleep in the day time. I was once in there watching them doing a big heavy crank shaft when the top die fell out I have never seen so many run out of the way. I dont know if you know but they had a bigger one in the stamp shop something like 125 tonner it was only used on special jobs, boy did that bang when they were using it I do know that the walls use to shake when they were forging. happy times in there I can tell you. the biggest drop hammer I have ever seen was in a firm in sheffield cant remember the name of the company now but there drop hammer was somewhere in the region of 350 tons it took three hammer drivers to use it in all the team I think there was about 12 of them. If I see my mate he will tell me who the firm was as he used to work there it could be daniel doncasters as they had some bloody big drop hammers.

A bit more history on HERE (http://www.sheffieldforgemasters.com/history_home.php) :thumbsup:

does the name mick millington aka milli mean anything to you
he has just retired after47 years (electrician and later south machine shop

I worked at forgemasters between 83-85 as an apprentice.From what I can remember SF took on 12 apprentices in total that year who went to the old Firth Brown training shop for approx 12 months.We where then sent out into the factory to conclude our training.
Unfortunately we where all made redundant ( still riles me to this day ) before we could finish our apprenticeships..I think 1 or 2 got apprenticeships at other companies but the company basically washed their hands of us.We got about £400 in redundancy money which they reminded us they didn't have to give us.What with me being young and naive I blew it all on a holiday in Benidorm.
Departments I can remember are -
CEW ( central engineering workshop ).
North Area Maintanence.
South Machine shop maintanence.