Report - The Universal Grinding Wheel Co. - Stafford - 2012 to 2019

[It'sGrimUpNorth]

Fantastic! When i saw the deco front i was hoping for some nice offices and a board room, great job.

 

[admin]

Fantastic! When i saw the deco front i was hoping for some nice offices and a board room, great job.

Well there is a pic of the remains of the boardroom, we managed to open

 

[It'sGrimUpNorth]

Well there is a pic of the remains of the boardroom, we managed to open

I meant that you had delivered (sorry!!!) They look great, fabulous.

 

[merryprankster]

Great report dude, went for a mooch up here today, first chance ive had to get out for a while, real nice chilled explore, the modern office block at the frount is very stripped out, still a few bits worth seeing in the main factory though.

 

[westernsultan]

I've heard back from St. Gobain regarding the Unicorns and they tell me "We are currently in the process of restoring them and we plan to put them on display at our new site"

 

[Speed]

Great. I thought it would be somthing like that.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Fantastic report. Persistence paid off. I have been waiting 18 yrs for 6 near me. Finally got 2 done, 3rd I finally opened door to find no floor and a workman looking up at me from ground level lol, that used to be a pub!!


Some stunning shots there, and a great mix of retro & modern inside. Glad you got one of your nemeses done. Good job. :

 

[lonsdale]

Went around this place with my engineering college back in the early 90's. I remember they had a huge hydro press that dated back to the early days with 1000 tonnes of pressure for the bigger wheels & they also made some 'Gunk' type product as a sideline.

 

[lonsdale]

...Come to think of it, Blue piping is usually water so that coupled with the accumulators could have been part of that older water based system??, Or not.

 

[Ojay]

Passed here this week on the train and it's now demolished, we had a good run around the place and plenty of pics to document it's demise

 

[JonH]

Thank you so much for leading me down memory lane! Worked for Universal for 7 years overall. Early 90's was in sales and visited the site many times.
Think of the normal process like making sand castles, the abrasive (different types and grades stored in those hoppers) are mixed with various clay and glass compounds with a tiny amount of temporary binder (dextrose) then when mixed water is added to make it damp (dissolves the binder and makes it sticky).
The damp mix is spread into very strong moulds but has to be evenly spread - a skilled job!, then pressed in the presses, it's then demoulded and the binder holds everything together although it's still fragile. The 'green' wheels are then dried, the magnetrons shown were indeed for microwave heating to dry some types of wheel more quickly, recall 8kW but could be wrong, was early days of microwaves.

When dry they were fired in the kilns, these were gas fired hence the enormous gas meter. Seem to recall they were loaded onto wheeled trucks to load and unload etc. During firing the glass and clay go through different phases and become fluid, so when cooled form a solid structure around and between the abrasive.

I remember the labs (started in R&D at another site and visited few times), the offices - got a massive bollocking from the MD once in one of those offices due to an extraordinarily high mobile phone bill, back in the days when you got charged if someone left a voice message then again when you listened to it!

In days gone by the kilns were tunnel type, and part of the kiln workers employment was to get 6 pints of beer a day to prevent dehydration.
During WW2 when sugar was rationed the workers would use the the binder in tea in place of sugar, so a bitter chemical was added (like the one to stop you biting your nails) to try to prevent this. Workers forged on, using it regardless and got used to the taste, continuing to use it after the war and rationing stopped apparently. The works had it's own rail yard back in the day for transporting the abrasive wheels.
So - thanks for prompting my brain to search back in the archives!!