Bespoke castings since 1862

2012 marks 150 years in business for William Lane. We will be making sure that we don’t let that milestone go by without some celebration, I wonder how many small engineering businesses there are (or Foundries) in England that have such a long history, I suspect very few.

Our calendars are normally ‘off the peg’ with our details overprinted, but we had always intended to do something a bit different this year to mark a new company look & logo, but a bit late in the day the significance of 2012 struck home. What followed was a rework to show images through the year of significant & interesting projects that we have been involved in and represent the variety of work we do.

I will pick up the subject of each image for a Blog in the appropriate month during 2012.

A large number of the pictures are from our own ‘library’ but we are very grateful for images kindly provided by customers & friends that helped to complete the calendar, namely: Ian Macdonald, A1 Locomotive Preservation Trust, Rob Morland, Beamish Museum, Middlesbrough Council, Mike Kipling, Adrian Wood, Middlesbrough Football Club, Andrew Munro and CVO. Thanks also to Tammy Britton and County Print who made it possible, we have had some very nice feedback from those that received the calendar, so we might do the same next year!

We do get a steady steam of interesting things to cast. Not that we fancy working in armaments, but we have just had a couple of intriguing jobs for private individuals. The first was a number of tricky brass castings that were being used to make a pair of replica muskets, we had homemade patterns to work with (which is not ideal), but the customer was very pleased with the final results and we are looking forward to seeing the finished articles!

Coincidentally another customer brought in a wooden model of a replica cannon, he wanted us to make 2 Cast Iron copies off it and put a 1.5” bore down the barrel so that it could be used for re-enactments. Again we were working from a homemade piece, not manufactured as a pattern, but using a little time, patience & experience we managed to get some good results. Putting the bore in was a bit more tricky, machines don’t readily adapt to items that are not dimensionally true, but we got there in the end to the delight of our customer. We made an extra one to keep for exhibiting purposes, would be nice to add a carriage and maybe a few Cast Iron Cannon Balls!

At the 100 year celebrations for the Transporter Bridge, we met and had a brief chat with Middlesbrough Mayor, Ray Mallon, about the centenary castings we had been involved with (see previous Blog) and our Business. He asked for a business card and said he would be interested in visiting and he would get his PA to call and arrange a suitable date. To be honest, we didn’t expect any further contact, but true to his word, she rang and we fixed for him to visit us one afternoon in December.
When he arrived we had a few minutes of introduction followed by a demonstration of moulding in the Foundry before we were ready to cast. We had a large Offset Bronze Bush to make for Tata’s Hartlepool Pipe Mill, which would need product from both furnaces via a holding ladle, a great demonstration of teamwork & timing. A tour around the rest of the site and explanation of our history went very well, we are the only link to Middlesbrough’s long and illustrious molten metal heritage. He seemed to enjoy and learn from what he saw and stayed with us for an hour and a half – a good effort on a cold December afternoon.
We had a very nice letter of thanks for our hospitality, we are pondering an appropriate keepsake for his office that can spark conversation with his visitors.

Through Middlesbrough Council we were recently invited take part in a full Business Review with Teesside University. As a result, we have a detailed report showing the strengths and weaknesses of the Company and identifying areas of focus for the future. There weren’t any great surprises, which is a good thing, but it was very helpful in distilling out what we are good at and the challenges that lie ahead for us.
We spent a fair amount of time brainstorming and one thing to result from this was a Mission Statement that we are all pleased with:
“To develop and sustain Middlesbrough’s Foundry Heritage, providing a flexible and intimate service that solves our customers engineering problems”
The statement encapsulates how we deal with our customers and what we are striving to do going forward. Middlesbrough’s history starts in the 1840’s and is based around Iron & Steel, by 1874 there were 95 blast furnaces and the town was producing a third of the Country’s Iron, this is a year before Dorman Long was established, Lanes started up in 1862. Today there are no other Foundries in Middlesbrough, where once there were 147, and Iron & Steel making has gone, although SSI are in the process of re-igniting the Blast Furnace in neighbouring Redcar. We are an important part of Middlesbrough, a link to it’s industrial  heritage, this is something we want to share with our community whilst moving the business on to keep it viable and relevant in the future.
Thanks to Suhail Aslam & Debbie Ingoldsby for their valuable input.

As part of the centenary celebrations of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, local artists Adam Baldwin and Vicky Holbrough helped six talented young people to produce unique pieces of abstract art.
The pieces are the result of the Gallery TS1 Arts Apprenticeship Scheme, a pioneering creative opportunity in which young people not in education, employment or training, work alongside artists to create saleable artworks.
Over a two-week period, the apprentices worked with the artists to produce an unusual iron cast of the Transporter’s controller and handmade resin casts from cogs on the iconic structure.
Adam explained: “We walked over the Transporter Bridge to get a feeling for the structure and its history, but also to make small clay impressions of aesthetic parts of the bridge that would give a good definition, would tell a story and reflect on the bridge’s engineering and industrial heritage.”
Plaster castings of the clay impressions were produced, from which the apprentices chose a pattern produced from the Transporter’s old controller, which operated the bridge for 99 years until its replacement last year.
Lanes worked with Adam and the students to produce a usable pattern and they all came to the Foundry to watch the 1st batch being moulded & cast in Iron. They have been numbered, fettled, shotblasted and boxed and look very effective. Being the only Foundry in Middlesbrough and having done a lot of work for the Transporter over the years added a local engineering counterpoint to the art.
“The limited editions are history and art in one,” added Adam. “Producing them was a wonderful experience for the young people.”

We get regular visits to the Foundry and we are always happy to give a ‘Royal Tour’ and demonstration of the production process. Our most recent visit was from the CIAS (Cleveland Industrial Archeological Society), and was booked in some time ago so that we could cater for what is our maximum safe party of 12. The tour was planned for 1pm, giving us time to lay out a display of examples of our work, clear a view of the old coke fired furnaces built into the Foundry floor (which is now lit up), and set up a demonstration. On their arrival we were ready to pour Cast Iron. Then a tour of the site that also included the Pattern Shed, which was the original Foundry building set up in 1907 and used until WW2 – the original furnaces, moulding benches and core shop can all still be seen. There was then a moulding demo before we cast some Bronze at the end of the tour. The Society were with us for a couple of hours with plenty of good questions! A round of applause at the end, could get used to that! A very nice letter of thanks for our hospitality makes it all worthwhile.

We received this very nice Testimonial from a private client, she said we could edit as we saw fit, but here it is in full:
“When we first considered creating something for the gable end of our new extension it was our address that provided us with initial inspiration, but we had no idea how to make it happen. A simple web search gave me an insight in to what William Lane might be able to do and it was their examples of previous work that gave me the immediate confidence to make contact with them. Our customer experience has been second to none from start to finish. Despite the distance between us I knew from the first point of contact that we had found the right company to work with. Everything about our communication has been helpful and responsive. What a refreshing change to find a company who still puts the customer at the heart of the project. Our initial idea soon started to take shape and it was clear that we were going to end up with something even better than we had originally hoped for. We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have found William Lane and can’t wait for a break in the recent inclement weather to get our fantastic half penny in to pride of place.”
We do try and it is nice that our efforts are appreciated!

One of the more unusual jobs we have done recently was a 450mm dia Bronze Plaque of an old Half Penny.
A lady from Ipswich found our website through Google and emailed us to see if we could manufacture a decorative plaque for her fix to the gable end of the house. It needed to be dated 2011 and depict an old Half Penny as she lives in Ha’penny Field. Ordinarily customers come to the Foundry (or we go to them) and we talk projects through together to ensure we are all on the same wavelength, not really possible when she is in Ipswich, an additional challenge!
We gave her various cost options depending on which metal she preferred, the cheapest was Aluminium and Bronze the most expensive. As it was most consistent with the original coin, she chose Bronze.
Producing the casting was always going to be the straightforward bit as far as we were concerned, manufacturing a suitable pattern (at a sensible cost) somewhat more tricky. First of all I went to our local Sign maker as he has a full artwork package and CNC Router, we agreed an image to work from with our client and left it with him. I am sure he could have made a successful pattern, but this was a bit beyond what he had used his software for in the past. He passed us on to a friend with the same machinery and more comprehensive software, who normally works with Corian (some great work see website: www.sbsolidsurface.co.uk ). Luckily for us he was ‘between jobs’ and so had time to dedicate to this commission, he will tell you that he learnt a huge amount about what his software can do along the way. We did explore taking a laser 3D image of an old coin and blowing it up, this was going to be very expensive and we only have old (and worn) coins to work with, not a good solution. Ultimately the coin had to be completely redrawn, and then turned into a 3D file that could be sent to the Router. The pattern took 8 hours to cut on the machine in MDF.
From the pattern we did ‘the easy bit’, adding lugs to the back so it can be secured to the wall and everyone is delighted with the outcome. As a bonus we have new local ‘specialist’ patternmaker.

When we are given full details of the components our customers need to produce, we can often make significant savings compared to buying standard Bar or Tube.
A good example recently was an enquiry for a large diameter PB Tube, our customer had a misunderstanding with his Stockholder supplier, he thought the price was £250 whereas it should be £1250, the problem was that he won the job expecting to pay £250!
The part he was making was a Flanged Bush, so by giving us his finished dimensions we calculated a weight of an appropriate casting for him to machine and finish at those sizes. We can make an almost infinite variety of Bushes & Flanged Bushes, we normally allow a quarter of an inch on each dimension for finishing. In this case we were able to cut the material down by 50%, so the casting was £650.

Saving on the material is one thing, but just as significantly the machining time required to finish the part is hugely reduced. If the customer had bought a regular Tube, he would then need to machine off all the material we saved making a casting.
One perceived advantage of buying from Stock is the speed of delivery. Whilst that would be fair comment for most Foundries, at William Lane we often produce castings next day and in breakdown situations, the same day if necessary. Allowing time for pieces to be cut from stock bar, there is almost no lead-time disadvantage choosing a casting from William Lane, but plenty of savings.

Following on from our first tentative steps exhibiting at a recent HIS event, we were out again at the Steam Rally in Duncombe Park last weekend.
We make a lot of components for small scale replicas and full sized engines and this was an opportunity to get our name out to a wider audience as well as the public at large. We took a good selection of things we make, not just for Traction Engines, such as; nameplates for Locos & Stations, various railway signs, GWR & GER bench ends, finials and boot-scrapers.
We also set up to demonstrate sand moulding and then casting a small pewter bowl, this generated a lot of interest, the last one ‘playing’ to an audience of about 70!
We put up a new company banner, had some new brochures printed for the occasion, and were generally pretty run off our feet all weekend, all the brochures gone and no business cards left! We even got some enthusiastic interest from a Dutch Water Pump Engineer who was there on holiday (we do a lot of Impellers), he was amazed at our quick turn-around, there are certainly plenty of Water Pumps in Holland so perhaps that will lead to something.
We shared our pitch with our local Blacksmith friend, who was in charge of crowd control, hecklers & photography, when he wasn’t selling his own artistic Ironwork.
The weather was fantastic, which brought the crowds out, and we had a great weekend, although perhaps getting a little old to be camping in a small tent, particularly with a punctured airbed!
We took a couple of nice little orders including a set of Brass Hubcaps for a full sized Engine (28kg each), we could also have sold the Silver Link nameplate we have just made (and took along to exhibit only) several times over (see previous HSI Blog).