swowls

Looks to me like some kind of a locking mechanism that maybe controlled by a thermocouple???

Vacuum remelting was a neat place to work for a good few months. Always enjoyed the lunchtime football game in the yard. Wasn't Keith Manual the foreman there? and the fitter when I was there was John ?? Does anyone remember the tricians mate that we nicknamed VOD? Cant say I enjoyed that "ganny mill" work and the stone crusher. Saturdays we used to get great bacon sandwiches on Peter Street and huge cream cakes. My mother has a sweet shop at the Sutherland Road end of Peter St for a time, near a bus stop.

The first two photos looks like a large mold for the melting shop. The last does look like SPD, the molds were transported in via a railroad car and after melting, refining and tapping was again moved on a flat bed railroad car. The vacuum was created by some of the largest Roots blowers and injection pumps I think I have ever seen. I dont remember what level of vacuum was achieved but I reckon it could not have been too low (or high depending on how you look at it) with all the crap in there and the outgassing rate of the melt?

The "turntable" or vertical borer so I was told was confiscated from Germany after WW2 as they used it for turning the tanks turret turning gear. The name sounded like Sheece-de-freece (sorry about that). I believe that Mr Matthews was the manger over SPD for a time and both his sons Steve and Paul worked with us in maintenance. Also a good mate of mine Dave Kell worked on SPD for the longest time.

Hi Melv, Peter If I remember right there were two drivers killed on the casting bay cranes, one was hit on the track and the second guy actually took a nap sat on one of the end carriages and no one realized and another driver moved the crane and the sleeping guy fell into the trunnion wheels. Was not found until someone reported a bunch of rags wrapped around the wheels. Also while I was an apprentice at Norfolk Bar rolling mills, a guy was killed by the charger. He was in the cooling pits and the floor bound charger hit him at the back of the head and dragged him from one pit to the other, there was 4" clearance from floor to crane gantry. We were pulled out of lunch in the shop to jack up the charger and get him out. I believe it was Johnny Leach and myself that jacked up the charger. The Safety Officer at the time eventually arrived, and fainted. The other I remember was an electrician who was going to clean the switches for one of the E furnaces (like E3 maybe) He had "racked" the switch out and then did the short and earth test but he did not verify the meter AFTER the test and the switch was not correctly grounded. When he put his arm up the switch to clean the inside, it shot him across the switch room and killed him. Before my time there was a guy that got trapped in the tunnels of the pit furnaces where the tweeres were and got killed. Then way after I left Big Dave (??) an Engineer was killed when a furnace brickwork collapsed on him. I remember him as a real nice guy, a BIG guy and he happened to live at Aston near us.

Thats a great shot of melting, light machine shops and at the bottom right is the gate for the forge maintenance shop, the canteens and FB Tools.

The forge maintenance shop was pretty much right next to the central stores so when a new stock of donkey coats came in we got the word pretty fast and had first shot of new ones. I remember one job we needed them, the coke elevators broke and all the buckets finished up in the bottom of the shaft and so no coke could be lifted from the railroad car drop area up to the gas producers. No elevators, no gas, no furnaces, no forging, no pit furnaced nothing. We worked continuously for days, in shifts and was kipping on the maintenance shop benches. At one point the heavy lifters (remember Herbert Priestley? (nickname road runner) had the buckets and belt partly lifted up the shaft and one of the guys JUST got his head out of the shaft looking up, and the belt broke again. It would have took his head off. Good old days.

Do you remember we even had a lady come around just to clean the telephones? I can only think of 5 canteens etc. Staff, workers and foremans (Saville St), the one on Carlisle St and then of course the Board of Directors. ---------- Post added 27-12-2017 at 00:53 ---------- http://picturesheffield.com/frontend...=zoom&id=90241 The little guy in the middle of this came in for a time as something like the Chief Engineer, a real little **** he was. He ****** of the directors I believe it was, and was fired for "Intellectual Arrogance"

Right you are, you know I believe there was even a shooting range there at one time. dont think I ever used that canteen, as an apprentice we used the one across from the drawing office on Saville St, was that 36 gate? Then as a foreman we used the one over it. The best recollections of the canteen downstairs was on Saturday mornings having bacon and eggs, and they were greasy. A great apprenticeship and now the model of the 4000 ton press is in the museum at Kalham Island. When I was in the ATS I worked on the extension beds for the model.

Off al the things to forget, I dont remember the nurse. You know my only ever visit to the nurse was WAY back when I went to get salt tablets but I seem to remember that the first aid was somewhere down on Carlisle street maybe on the left going away from town?? We were working on the top of the 1750 ton press and it was 135 degrees if I remember (we took a thermometer up there) and we were not going for a pint!!! I want to say there was a relief valve or bypass valve up there in the middle of the cylinders???

Didn't those guys and the machine shops have their own maintenance guys? I dont remember having ever done any maintenance in there.

Rolls were hardened in vertical induction furnaces I believe. Wasn't it around the light machine shop area?

And contracts with British Rail for train tyres. ---------- Post added 22-12-2017 at 17:52 ---------- Do you remember the tyre drop test outside the tyre mill? it was at the town side of the bridge over Carwood rd. A big old weight and a vertical slide. There was also a lathe in the tyre mill that was like from the late 1800's

We also made highly polished rolls for paper rolling mills in Canada.

The GFM could turn out the RR shaft in about that time. It had to because I dont believe there were any reheat furnace up at GFM just the "donut" heating furnace. The manipulators were fast and perfectly timed to the hammer strokes so it was very efficient.