1911 Institute of Metals: Visits to Works
Note: This is a sub-section of 1911 Institute of Metals
VISITS TO WORKS. (September 20 and 21, 1911)
SIR W. G. ARMSTRONG, WHITWORTH & COMPANY, LIMITED, ELSWICK.
The works at Elswick of the above firm were established in 1847, and consist of 93 buildings, including 40 workshops, fitted with the most modern machinery, employed mainly in the manufacture of war material, and equipped for the following work : gun construction, naval gun mountings, land service gun mountings, field service carriages, shot and shell, cartridge cases, forgings, iron castings, gun sights and fittings, brass-finishing, electric work, gun inspection, and pattern making. There are material testing rooms, stores, engine and boiler houses; also steel works, engine works, and shipyard.
In the main offices are large and well-lit drawing offices, chemical laboratory, plan printing and photographic studios, &c. The works are capable of manufacturing guns and mountings from the smallest to the greatest. The latest pattern guns are wire wound, and to give an instance of the processes employed, it may be mentioned that for a 12-inch gun no fewer than 124 miles of wire have to be employed. For the construction of the larger mountings for 9.2-inch and 12-inch guns, the mountings are erected complete, with their ammunition hoists and hydraulic machinery, in deep pits, which correspond with the positions they will occupy on board ship. This allows of the mounting being entirely constructed and tried before delivery to the ship. The whole of the hydraulic gear required in these modern mountings is also manufactured in this department; the pumping engines are, however, manufactured in the engine works department. Field guns and carriages of the most improved type are also manufactured here, and it is estimated that, when in full work, at least fifty batteries could be turned out each year. Torpedo tubes both for submerged discharge and above-water discharge to suit all types of vessels are manufactured in the ordnance works. The Elswick system of submerged discharge has been adopted either partially or entirely by all the Naval Powers of the world, some of whom, under a licence from the Company, manufacture these tubes in their own countries.
Some idea of the capacity of this establishment for the manufacture of war material may be gathered from the fact that during the cycle of ten years, July 1, 1893, to June 30, 1903, 3,353 guns from 13.5-inch to 3-inch calibre, and 9,084 guns below 3-inch calibre, or a total of 12,437 guns, were completed; the total weight of guns constructed during that period being 15,146 tons. During the same period there were also completed 5435 mountings for guns, 13.5-inch to 3-inch calibre, and 1834 mountings for guns below 3 inches, a total of 7,269 mountings.
SIR W. G. ARMSTRONG, WHITWORTH A COMPANY, LIMITED, WALKER SHIPYARD.
This shipyard has an area of about 30 acres, with a river frontage of 950 feet. There are six building berths of 450 to 650 feet in length. The general formation of the ground, although it has militated against any large scheme of extension, has provided an element of economy in the fact that the general inclination is all towards the river, and in arranging the means of transporting material, in placing the sheds and in arranging the machines, full advantage has been taken of this. The yard, although not large, has been laid out with a view of producing work as rapidly as possible, and with this object, railways, of normal and narrow gauge, lead to all parts of the ground, and transporting cranes and runners are arranged wherever they can be usefully employed, so that the movements of material in its various stages are quickly and economically effected. A large outfit of the most modern shipyard machinery in the steel and wood departments has been installed, and is added to and altered as changes and improvements in shipbuilding practice seem to make it desirable. The list of vessels which have been built in this yard, although con, prising nothing that can compare in point of size with some of the latest productions of larger yards, shows a variety and range of type which few if any firms of shipbuilders can equal. The tank steamer for carrying liquid cargoes in bulk has been, and is now, one of the specialities of this yard, no fewer than 98 such vessels having been built here out of a total fleet of 268. Ice-breaking vessels of various forms and widely varying powers, paddle steamers, twill and single screw passenger and cargo vessels, cable vessels, ferry steamers, and dredgers, go to make up an exceptionally interesting list. In normal times about 2500 men are employed in the Walker yard, and the annual output under favourable conditions is about 40,000 to 50,000 tons.
THE BEDE METAL & CHEMICAL COMPANY, LIMITED, HEBBURN-ON-TYNE.
The operations carried on at these works are principally the extraction of copper. Two processes are in operation. The first is the wet process, where only the cinders resulting from the burning of iron pyrites—for the manufacture of sulphuric acid—are treated. The ore is ground, mixed with salt, and roasted in furnaces, whereby the copper is converted into soluble chlorides and sulphates, and can be leached out. The copper liquors contain a little silver; this is precipitated by adding a soluble iodide before precipitating the copper in vats with scrap iron. The resulting copper precipitate is then smelted and refilled. The residual iron ore is made into briquettes by the Grondal system of briquettiug.
Smelting.— Copper precipitate, ores, and all rich copper materials are smelted and refined in reverberatory furnaces, where ingots, cakes, and wire bars are produced. The production of copper is about 2500 tons per annum.
CLARKE, CHAPMAN & COMPANY, LTD., GATESHEAD-ON-TYNE.
The works of this firm cover 14 acres of land, and employ from 2,500 to 3,000 men. The buildings embrace large iron foundry, brass foundry, separate machine erecting and testing shops for winches and windlasses, pumps and electric machinery, forge and smithy, boiler shops, special shop for Admiralty work, coppersmith shop, mirror and lens shops, electric sub-station, store houses, dining-rooms, offices, &c. Each department is replete with machinery exemplifying the latest developments of mechanical engineering science, the motive power throughout being electricity. The operations of the firm are chiefly devoted to ships' auxiliary machinery, amongst the machines manufactured being deck cranes, capstan gears, warping capstans, steering gears, hoists, auxiliary boilers, pumps feed water heaters, condensing plants, electric generating plants, searchlight projectors, water-tube boilers, hauling and winding engines, electric motors, electrically driven drills, and seamless steel boats. It will be seen from the above that the firm have not overlooked the increasing use of electrical power on shipboard, and accordingly have alternative steam or electric designs in all classes of their productions.
COOKSON & CO., HOWDON-ON-TYNE.
These works are engaged in refining and desilverising argentiferous and auriferous lead bullion imported from various sources. This lead bullion from foreign smelting works contains various amounts of impurities, and carries silver in various degrees up to nearly 600 ozs. per ton; also gold up to 4 ozs. and over. The processes to be seen include the sampling of the raw material for assay purposes; the "improving" or removal of the impurities; the method of desilverisation by zinc process, with final extraction of silver and gold; and the working up of the various intermediate products. Rolling-mill and pipe presses are also to be seen at work. A large part of the refined lead produced goes to Cookson & Co.'s works on Howdon Dock, where the processes of manufacture of white lead, by both the old " stack process," and by the newer German " chamber process," are carried on on a large scale; also the manufacture of red lead and litharge. There are also at these works very extensive paint mills, where the processes can be seen of grinding the white lead with linseed oil.
DUNSTON POWER STATION.
This station, constructed for the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Company, Limited, is an example of the latest practice in power station design. The company ranks among the largest suppliers of electricity in the world. The North-East Coast Power System covers au area of over about 1000 square miles of the industrial portion of North-Eastern England, and at the present time some 150,000 horse-power is connected to the Power Companies' systems. The construction of the station was decided upon by the Company about three years ago, owing to the continued growth of its business, which is increasing at the rate of some 20,000 horse-power per annum. A site of about 30.5 acres was obtained on the south bank of the Tyne at Dunston, about three miles above the High Level Bridge, and some eight miles from Carville, where their principal generating plant up to that date had been. This site has the advantage of allowing plenty of spare land for the new electro-chemical works and other industries, which are being attracted to the Tyne by the cheapness of power supply, and although the station has been running for only a few months, works are already under construction for the manufacture of zinc electrolytically on a very large scale, and for the production of steel by the electric arc furnace. The station generates three-phase current at a periodicity of 40 complete cycles per second and a normal voltage of 5750. The steam pressure is 200 lbs. per square inch, and the steam is superheated.
FOSTER, BLACKETT & WILSON, LTD., HEBBURN-ON-TYNE.
These lead works are situated on the south bank of the Tyne at Hebburn, and occupy an area of about 8 acres. The firm are not lead smelters, but devote themselves entirely to the manufacture of lead products, which include dry white lead, white lead paint ground in oil, red lead, orange lead, ground litharge, and sheet and pipe lead. In the main building are situated the sets of Pattinson pots for refining and desilverising lead. Desilverising is no longer done on a large scale by the firm, as most of the raw lead is now bought already desilverised, but the firm still use this process for obtaining a very pure refined lead for the use of chemical works. They have made a speciality of this class of work, and do a very large trade with all the leading chemical works in the country, and have made a great name for the acid-resisting qualities of their chemical lead.
Close to the Pattinson pots lies the sheet lead rolling-mill, which can turn out sheet lead up to 45 feet long and 8 feet wide, and varying in thickness from 1 inch (i.e. 60 lbs. per square foot) down to 2.5 lbs. per square foot. In the same building are situated two hydraulic pipe presses, which turn out lead pipe from 3/16 inch to 9 inches inside diameter, a maximum hydraulic pressure of 3.5 tons per square inch being exerted on a ram of 18 inches diameter. Opposite this shop is the red lead house, where red lead, orange lead, and ground litharge are manufactured; this department is equipped with a large range of furnaces capable of an output of over 50 tons of red lead per week. The other half of the works consists of a white lead department, where the white lead is made by the old stack process; and nearer the river lies the paint-grinding house, which is equipped with the latest types of Torrance mixing machines, turning out a very high grade of lead paint.
HARFIELD & CO., BLAYDON IRON WORKS.
These works are devoted chiefly to the manufacture of the firm's specialities in marine auxiliary machinery, comprising anchor and steering gears, and capstans, windlasses and hoisting gears generally. This firm were the original inventors of the modern system of working cables for anchors now universally adopted both in war and merchant vessels, and which was first used for the Great Eastern in 1857. Their equipments are fitted in the largest number of British and foreign warships, and supplied to the principal firms in the mercantile marine.
R. & W. HAWTHORN, LESLIE & CO., LTD., NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
The marine engine works of R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie & Co., Ltd., are situated at St. Peters, at the east end of Newcastle, and are accessible both by the train service of the riverside line of the North- Eastern Railway Co. and by tramcar. The works cover an area of 20 acres, and consist of fitting, machine and erecting shops, boiler shop, pattern shop and brass foundry, copper and blacksmiths' shops. The whole establishment is laid out for the production of machinery of the largest type for merchant ships or war vessels, and of either the ordinary reciprocating type or turbine installations. A very considerable proportion of the machinery of the torpedo boats and torpedo-boat destroyers in the British Navy has been constructed here, as well as the heavier machinery of first-class cruisers and battleships for British and for foreign Governments. In connection with the brass foundry, there is a chemical laboratory, established for the purpose of adequately controlling the various alloys which are used in the foundry productions.
J. H. HOLMES & CO., NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
These works are devoted to the manufacture of electrical machinery and apparatus of many descriptions, such as dynamos and motors, both for direct and alternating currents; all kinds of switchgear, switchboards, electrical measuring instruments, and electric light fittings. The shops consist for the most part of two large four-storey buildings, the older building containing the commercial and drawing offices, in addition to the machine, erecting, switch making, and switchboard shops, and the general stores. The newer building, at a lower level, is devoted to the armature core building, armature and field-coil winding, and the assembling and testing of small motors up to about 15 horse-power. Joiners' and pattern shops, instrument shops, and foundry are in separate buildings.
Power is supplied to the works from the mains of the Newcastle Electric Supply Co., being transmitted from Carville, some four miles distant. Everything in the works is electrically driven, the line shafting being run by 440 volt three-phase motors, while all the large machine tools and isolated machines are driven by individual direct-current motors. Some idea of the extent to which electric power is employed may be formed when it is stated that there are about 180 motors in use, aggregating 2400 horse-power. At the present time there are over 700 dynamos and motors in process of manufacture, while the total horse- power of machinery constructed by the firm up to date is approximately 250,000. A feature of the work worth noting is that every part of machines up to about 60 horse-power is made absolutely to gauge and jig, and is therefore interchangeable - a matter of no small convenience to buyers and users. Particular attention is devoted to the thorough drying and insulating of armatures and field coils, as upon the thoroughness with which these operations are performed depends the satisfactory working and reliability of electrical machinery. Very complete arrangements are provided for thorough drying by vacuum, and impregnating with insulating varnish under pressure. The stamping out and notching of armature and stator core plates is usually of interest to visitors, many ingenious and special machines being employed for this work.
The machine shop is equipped with many modern and special machine tools, amongst which may be mentioned the grinding machinery for finishing armature shafts, &c. While electrical machinery is built for practically every industry in which electric power is used, the firm has specialised in several directions, amongst which may be mentioned ship-lighting (considerably over 1000 steamships having been supplied with generating plant), colliery work, and the printing trade. In connection with the last named, the Holmes-Clatworthy patent system for driving newspaper printing-machines is recognised in the trade as "the method," some 180 newspaper offices at home and abroad having installed this system with extremely satisfactory results.
THE NORTH-EASTERN MARINE ENGINEERING COMPANY, LIMITED, WALLSEND.
This Company was incorporated in 1865, and commenced business in that year at Sunderland, and their works, known as the Sunderland Engine Works, occupy an advantageous situation on the eastern side of the River Wear Commissioners' South Dock, Sunderland. The Company's works at Wallsend, known as the Northumberland Engine Works, were completed in 1882, and both works (Sunderland and Wallsend) may be considered as amongst the most complete and up to date in the United Kingdom, and they afford every advantage and facility for building and shipping marine engines and boilers in the most economical and thorough manner. It may be of interest to note that in the year 1907 this Company's output reached the enormous total of 126,630 I.H.P. The works comprise erecting and machine shops, boiler shops, forge and smithy, iron and brass foundries, pattern shop, brass finishing shop and coppersmith's shop, all replete with the best machinery obtainable for turning out high-class marine work of the largest size. The whole of the machines in both works are electrically driven, and each works has a very complete electric light installation.
The principal departments of the Wallsend Works consist of symmetrically arranged blocks of substantially built brick buildings, flanked by the Company's railway sidings on the east and west, by the river Tyne on the south, and by the North-Eastern Railway Company's Riverside and Tynemouth main lines on the north. The works at Wallsend have lofty bays, over 500 feet long by 60 feet wide, and are fitted with overhead electric cranes, travelling the whole length of the shops, and capable of lifting up to 150 tons.
The river frontage of these works is over 1000 feet, along the whole length of which is a substantial jetty, on which is fitted a large electric cantilever crane, capable of lifting up to 150 tons, and having a radius of 150 feet, also a 25-ton electrically driven jib crane, travelling the full length of the jetty.
The Company, having realised the great strides made in chemistry during recent years, and also the increasing necessity for analytical and other tests, have recently, to enable them to maintain the highest possible efficiency in the quality of their work, installed a commodious laboratory, with very complete apparatus, in conjunction with which they have a very fine tensile testing machine in use.
The entire area of the Company's property at Wallsend, including the foremen's villas and workmen's houses (which belong to the Company and were specially built for the convenience of their workmen), is about 30 acres. The total number of men employed in both works is from 3500 to 4000. Since its formation in 1865, the Company have engined over 2000 steamers of various types, and its output during the last ten years is believed to be the largest average annual output of marine engines and boilers of any marine engineering firm in the world.
PALMER'S SHIPBUILDING AND IRON COMPANY, LTD., JARROW.
The Jarrow works, which were founded in 1851 by the late Sir Charles Mark Palmer, Bart., M.P., cover an area of about a hundred acres, and have a river frontage of nearly three-quarters of a mile. They comprise a shipyard, graving dock and slipway, engine and boiler works, steel works and blast-furnaces, and include within themselves the entire range of shipbuilding operations, from the smelting of the ore to the complete equipment of the vessel.
It was at Jarrow that the first water-ballast iron screw collier, John Bowes, was built in 1852, a vessel which did much to keep the London market for northern colliery owners, and which was the forerunner of a long list of cargo and passenger vessels of all sizes built by Palmers. It is interesting to note that the John Bowes, after nearly sixty years trading, is still running.
In 1856 the firm received an order for an armour-plated vessel named Terror, which was built in three months, and was the first of 76 war vessels built or building for the British Government, consisting of 11 battleships, including the Resolution, Revenge, Russell, Lord Nelson, and Hercules, the last named being 20,000 tons displacement and 25,000 horse-power, and completed in 1911; 10 cruisers of various sizes; 28 torpedo-boat destroyers, ranging in speed up to 33 knots; 3 first-class torpedo boats; 12 gunboats; 10 torpedo miners, and a troopship.
The firm is at present building at Jarrow the large armoured cruiser, H.M.S. Queen Mary. The firm has built over 800 ships and over 800 sets of machinery. The Jarrow shipyard possesses its own forge, also large fitters', plumbers', joiners', and cabinetmakers' shops, sawmill, Ac. The graving dock is 440 feet long and 70 feet wide, and the slipway, which is worked by hydraulic power, is 600 feet long.
The engine works has turned out thirty-four sets of engines and boilers in. one year, and includes the most modern machinery for the manufacture of turbines of the largest power, plant for the manufacture of water-tube boilers of various types, together with foundries for the production of iron, brass, and steel castings. The sheerlegs lift 120 tons. All the departments are worked by electricity, which is produced in the Company's power-houses, and over the berths in the shipyard is installed electrically-worked gear for the rapid manipulation of materials used in the construction of the vessels.
There are five blast-furnaces, capable of producing about 250,000 tons of pig iron per annum, and in the steel works there are two 175-ton furnaces, producing basic open-hearth steel by the Talbot continuous process, and a 300-ton metal-mixer. There are in addition two 40-ton open-hearth acid-steel furnaces, and togging, sectional, and sheet mills, together with galvanising works, Sic.
C. A. PARSONS A CO., NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
These works were started in 1889 by the Hon. Sir Charles A. Parsons, K.C.B., in order to develop the steam turbine invented by him in 1884. Since that date they have been gradually extended until they now cover an area of about 11 acres, and employ from 800 to 1000 men and boys. The manufactures comprise steam turbines, exhaust and mixed- pressure turbines, turbo-alternators, direct current turbo-generators, turbo-pumps, blowers and compressors, also turbines for driving slow- speed machinery by means of double helical speed-reducing gear.
The works are complete with pattern shop, 145 feet by 40 feet, machine shop, erecting and electrical shops, comprising three bays, each 400 feet by 40 feet wide, and served by overhead electric cranes, varying in capacity from 10 to 40 tons. All the machinery is electrically driven, and is capable of turning out steam turbines up to 10,000 kws. capacity, while new tools are being added to deal with turbine units of 20,000 kws. capacity and over. Part of the current used in the works is generated by the firm's own power-plant, while the rest is bought from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Co.
In another building is the testing and packing department, equipped with two 20-ton cranes, where all the turbines and dynamos, are tested under steam, there being boilers and condensing plant capable of dealing with an output of 2000 kws. to 2500 kws. at one time.
There is also a very complete equipment of instruments, including an oscillograph, for making electrical tests of every kind. The rest of the works comprise a fitting and brass shop, brass foundry, blade-making and finishing departments, blacksmith shop, stores, testing department for tensile bending and other tests, as well as a special department for making searchlight mirrors, large numbers of which have been supplied to the British and foreign Governments and to private firms. The main offices have lately been extended to give further room for drawing-office and general purposes, as the volume of turbine work has grown very considerably during the past few years.
JOHN SPENCER & SONS LIMITED.
The firm of John Spencer & Sons, Limited, was founded in the year 1810 by Mr. John Spencer. In 1888 the firm was formed into a Limited Company. Great extensions followed - a complete plant for the manufacture of ship and boiler plates of the largest size - a hydraulic press for making heavy forgings; a new steel foundry to deal with the heaviest castings, and an entirely new machine shop were put down, bringing us to the present time after a lapse of one hundred years. The works comprise file making, tool steel, springs of all kinds, buffers, iron foundry, two large steel foundries, pattern shops, steam hammers and hydraulic presses for the heaviest forgings, machine shops, and a complete rolling-mill plant of the most up-to-date kind. The range of Siemens- Martin acid-process furnaces is twelve in number, of from 45 tons down to 10 tons each, and from these furnaces there is cast every week, on an average, 1500 tons of steel for various purposes.
SWAN, HUNTER, & WIGHAM RICHARDSON, LIMITED, WALLSEND AND WALKER-ON-TYNE.
The premises of this company have an arm of 78 acres and a river frontage of 4000 feet. The dry docks department includes a graving dock and two floating docks. The shipyards contain fifteen building berths, of which the largest is nearly 1000 feet long, and are capable of launching 150,000 gross tons a year. Some of the building berths are adapted for building, floating docks of the largest size. Four of the berths are covered by huge glass-roofed sheds equipped with overhead electric travelling cranes. Six of the other berths, though not covered, have lofty gantries over them carrying electric cranes with an outreach of 100 feet.
The yards and shops are served throughout with installations of electricity, water, and compressed air, so that in every quarter of the premises work can be done with the best of modern tools, whether driven electrically or whether they be hydraulic or pneumatic. An interesting item of the yard equipment is the floating crane "Titan," which was tested with a load of 175 tons. The crane stands on a rectangular steel pontoon provided with propelling machinery.
The Neptune Engine and Boiler Works are complete with modern labour-saving machinery. It is interesting to note that this department is the original home of the well-known and universally adopted Yarrow, Schlick & Tweedy system of balancing reciprocating engines to eliminate vibration.
The work turned out by Messrs. Swan, Hunter, A Wigham Richardson, Limited, is very varied in character, vessels having been built for the British Admiralty, for colonial and foreign Governments; and for ship, owners in every quarter of the globe. The vessels include great Atlantic liners for passengers and cargoes, channel and coasting boats of high speed, private yachts, torpedo-boat destroyers, first-class cargo liners, tramp cargo steamers, ships for transporting railway trains, for laying and repairing submarine cables, for carrying petroleum in bulk, and for conveying fruit, cattle, frozen meat, and other special cargoes; also floating docks, floating workshops, caissons and dock gates, floating coal depots, in fact, nearly every kind of ship and appliance that floats on the water.
Perhaps the best-known ship built by Messrs. Swan, Hunter, & Wigham Richardson, Limited, is the famous Cunard Express Mail Steamer, Mauretania, of 32,000 gross tons. Her four propellers are driven by Parsons steam turbines, developing 70,000 horse-power. The Mauretania holds all the Atlantic records, both eastward and westward, for the highest speed and fastest passages. In one year for twenty-seven consecutive runs made in all seasons and covering 77,500 knots, her average speed across the North Atlantic was no less than 25i knots an hour, which is an extraordinarily fine performance. The ship's fastest run was from Queenstown to New York at an average speed of 26.06 knots, or over 30 miles an hour.
Another noteworthy ship built by the firm is the first ocean-going cargo ship propelled by internal combustion engines. This ship is the Toiler, carrying 2600 tons deadweight on 14 feet draught. The propelling machinery consists of two Diesel oil engines driving twin screws at 250 revolutions per minute and each developing nearly 200 brake horse-power.
At the present moment the firm have four floating docks under construction, one for continental owners and three for the British Admiralty, the largest of which has a lifting capacity of 32,000 tons, and is to be stationed in the river Medway. The tonnage launched from the shipyards of Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, Limited, has exceeded that of any other firm in the world. In one year alone the output was 127,000 tons. During seven years ending 1910, there was launched no less than 144 vessels of 573,042 gross tons, i.e. an annual average of 21 vessels of 81,863 gross tons, which is a striking record.
See Also
Sources of Information