Report - Brymbo Steelworks, Brymbo. Mar 2012

[explorer62]

Evening peeps

history covered thoroughly in Zero's report here and there's a post from an ex employee in that thread too.

It's a place that has been on my to do list for ages and I thought I'd never get to it but I did and, despite it having gone downhill a lot from earlier reports I still enjoyed it.

Visited with Zero81

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Ta for looking
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[bikebouy]

As the token ex employee mentioned above, a bit more info in numerical order,
Pic 1, is a slag laddle, slag being the waste material off the top of the molten steel, you can see solidified slag on the laddle carrige which ran on rails and was toweed by a Janus loco.There is an actual wooden pattern up on the top road nearby to make a casting of the laddle.

Pic2,a scrap laddle, scrap was droped in the top,and then liifted above an electric arc furnace a lever was pulled and the laddle opened dropping the scrap into the furnace.

Pic7, the interior of the joiners shop, the reason for the large bulge in the floor is not known , but there is an underground tunnel heading from the foundry in that direction, also the floor is made of wooden cobbles.

Pic 8. the 2 cupola furnaces for melting cast iron, and the chargemans hut in between, only one furnace was used per day as the floor had to be dropped and re lined each night.

Pic 9. the silica sand mixer, silica sand was mixed with a resin, and used to make cores for hollow sections in castings.

Pic10, foremans office (walter)and what looks like large fall arrest bags, not used at brymbo, but probably dumped here.

Pic 13, th taping hole and run for the cupola furnace, molten iron would run down the spout into a laddle in a pit below, and be lifted out by a crane.A couple of tons of red hot irioon at a time.

Pic14, air hose, for blowing dust away , probably, the whole place was so dusty.

Pic 16. an airstream helmet,a small fan in the back would blow a filtered stream of fresh air under the visor, and outward to stop the horrendous dust when fettling the castings,

Pic20, various core boxes made in 2 parts,to get the cores out, these formed internal spaces in a casting,

Pic21,side elevation of the joiners shop

Pic22, core boxes the numbers refer to the size of core, the diameter, the length was then cut to size

pic 23, roof of foundry showing extractor fans, that were not there when i worked there.

 

[bikebouy]

awww thanks for that fella - nice to have stuff identified.

Must bring back memories every time some one posts a report on the place

So many great memories, and training there, every day was different, and so very sad to see it all crumbling down, there are some audi interviews on the Brymbo heritage website www.bhg.org.uk

especially Walter Slisbury, foreman of the foundry.

 

[bikebouy]

Looking back at pictures like yesterday when i worked there,