External Circlips Quality

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hello Trevor,

Welcome to the forum! A post here: http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/threads.asp?t=412

might be more likely to catch Ian's attention or you can use the 'message member' icon below one of his posts.

Neil

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Not the Trevor Pickles who wiped a "Consul?" at Nab wood?

 

Remember the Ellison scam?

 

 And Harry Patel trying to blow Anderson up lighting the H/T salt bath and changing the electrodes in same.

 

  No Pick, it isn't me.

 

Regards Ian.

Edited By Circlip on 11/03/2016 09:13:04

Edited By Circlip on 11/03/2016 09:16:47

[Chris GunnParticipant @chrisgunn36534]

Never mind about the circlips, tell us more about the consul, the Ellison scam and the salt bath.

Chris Gunn

[Trevor PicklesParticipant @trevorpickles44088]

As for the Ford Consul – me and a mate were going to the Monday night dance at Bradford's Mecca Ballroom when I spun the car several times and hit a steel lamppost – split the car completely in two – we were still sat in the front 1/2 and the back 1/2 was several meters away – we didn't get to the Mecca!!!

The molten salt bath was great fun in the lab – we used to squirt meths on it when folk walked through the door and it would burst into flames – scared the poop out of them – probably not a great idea!!

Don't know anything about the Ellison scam.

Best job I ever had was at Anderton Springs.

Cheers all.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Sounds like they were made from a dodgy batch of steel or perhaps even the wrong kind.

Michael W

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Don't know what the quality is like now, but before Ellisons eventually bought Andertons, when Pick and I were there, QC was 200%. All materials were 100% tested for Chemical structure and mechanical properties, anything not to spec including finished goods ended up on the scrap heap next to the Lab.

Peter Ellison had worked for A/S and decided to go it alone. so as a gesture, he was allowed to borrow some Presses and tooling and marketed a range of circlips under his own name.

We received a batch back from a customer complaining of delamination and faulty heat treatment and again, due to the 200% QC the batch was identified as some that had been scrapped for that reason.

Late night spies determined that "Someone" was raiding our scrap heap and following them back to base led to another firm.

Couple of nights later, a gang of "Heavies" repossessed the presses and all tooling AND packaging bearing the Anderton logo.

Happened before Trevor and I worked there but came up in one of our weekly talks from various managers.

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

A factor relating to circlips which seems not to be well known:

Circlips are made by stamping from a sheet of steel. Just like washers. This gives them edges which are sharp on one side and rounded on the other (just like washers). The groove is made deep enough to take account of this. But – when wear has occurred, it is still possible for the rounded edge to ride over the groove edge (which is rounded by wear). So, always fit circlips so the rounded edges face 'inwards', towards the retained part. This makes the sharp edge take the pressure, and so they are more reliable.

Really good circlips are ground after stamping, so both of the working edges are sharp.

With snap rings (round section) it can help to add, first, a plain ring with an internal chamfer, so that pressure pushes the chamfer over the ring and prevents it opening.

As used in the pistons of proper motor bicycles.

Cheers, Tim

Edited By Tim Stevens on 11/03/2016 12:40:55

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Barrelling should have got rid of the Sharp edge Tim. The "really good" ones we made were for the Hardy-Spicer U/J's fitted to virtually EVERY British car propshaft and those were ground both sides on a Discus grinder.

Lab used to have to check the "strength" of the grinding fluid for that as well.

Regards Ian.

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

Just to put the record straight, Ellisons never bought Andertons. Andertons belonged to an American parent company who owned a number of fastener companies and they bought Ellisons. The two companies where then "amalgamated" on the existing Ellison site, the Anderton site in Bingley was disposed off.

The idea that any of the product manufactured at either site was of suspect quality may have been true in the 60's but they both supplied direct into automotive (tier 1 suppliers) so quality was always paramount. Traceability has been a requirement for automotive suppliers for a long time and you just don't supply unless you can prove history right back to the ladle.

Circlips are not all produced from strip like washers. Rings with an ID of roughly 30 mm ID (either internal or external type) are made from strip material but bigger than this and they are normally made form wire stock that is coiled into a ring and then blanked to give the required form.

As Ian noted, the parts are all treated to remove any detachable burr in a "barreling" process that removes them and produces a much more uniform edge condition. If you have rings that have obvious and visible large radius on one side then they are cheap imports that are non-compliant with the accepted standards – they probably did not originate in the UK or any place near!

The idea that the "best" quality are all ground is also erroneous. This is an expensive process and is reserved for items that require either a sharp corner or most often a specific tolerance on the thickness that cannot be obtained any other way. Wire stock parts do not have a sharp corner on either side – they are the same both sides and there is an allowance for the ring maximum corner radius that is taken account of in the design of the ring and the specification of the groove. This is quite an in-depth design process and takes account of a number of variables.

Finally, anyone who thinks they are just nasty cheap little things designed to disappear under the nearest immovable object as soon as you try and use them are badly mistaken. They are as highly engineered as anything else in industry and are made to the highest standards. They are often required to perform the most demanding of jobs in arduous conditions and expected to work after "thugs" with screwdrivers or whatever else is to hand, rive them off and then hammer them back on!

And you thought it was just a case of making a bit of a groove on the end of the shaft and slipping a circlip over it. You all know a little better now

PS. That is the abbreviated version – there is significantly more to it than that.

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

I stand corrected Mark. The eventual tie up with Ellisons was long after I left. I went back for an "interview" 24 years ago for the D/O and at that time they were in "Englands Mill". Dee Kay engineering, the Gas works and probably Clyde street were no longer. Englands Mill was long after Trevor left and just before I left. Originally Andertons was sold to Tru-arc in America to escape death duties for the Kitchen family but not long after, N.H.Kitchen found he was president/owner of a "new" much larger asset than he'd sold. It was still just Andertons again when I moved on.

 

Regards Ian.

 

Another for Pick, Remember "No Neck"?  JMC.

Edited By Circlip on 11/03/2016 16:51:53

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

Ian,

Yes, Waldes Truarc!

Became a number of other names before eventually turning into Trans-Technology.

I could be mistaken but I think the Waldes/Truarc names are part of Rotaclip now?

Out of interest, I thought your mention of Englands Mill sounded strange as recall it being Britannia Mill and looking at the map it does look like they have built shops or something there now – called Britannia Wharf?

Mark

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Just went back to page one and saw I'd explained various. You didn't see the original face of "Britannia Mills" Mark, it had big letters fastened to the fascia "D&R England" until Andertons bought it. Movement of machinery into Englands was interrupted by the fact that all the presses were to go into the cellar part of the building, solid base for mounting. UNFORTUNATLY, person responsible for arranging this didn't allow for the fact that the distance between the floor and the ceiling was about two foot LESS than the height of some of the presses going in there (or not) and had to get a digger in to increase the space, talk about headless chickens.

Had a look on Google Earth and the main building is still there but the main entrance is now a road, First building on right, Bingley Amateur Operatic Society, was the small orders office.

Regards Ian.

[Trevor PicklesParticipant @trevorpickles44088]

No neck – Mick Chaney??

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

That's the name you gave him.

[Trevor PicklesParticipant @trevorpickles44088]

But – who are you – give me a clue!

[Trevor PicklesParticipant @trevorpickles44088]

Ian whoever – I can remember the elements I used to analyse in the EN42J mild steel, beryllium copper and stainless steel, and in the order in which they were recorded in the book:

C, Si, S, P, Mn. Ni Cr, Cu, Mo and (I think) W

As this conversation is only vaguely related to this site it may be good manners to continue on email – you can find me at:

<edit> please don't share emails on the forum as you will get spammed. I have ti bear the burden of having a  very public email address, but have several layers of spam protection, we have to assume ordinary users don't so please use the 'message member' facility to swap emails. Thanks, Neil

 

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 13/03/2016 14:06:00

[Trevor PicklesParticipant @trevorpickles44088]

One final tidbit – it's 50 years ago this month since I left Anderton's and headed 'downunder'.

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