Were castings cheap back then?

[Roger HartParticipant @rogerhart88496]

Looking through a 1920s ME article I spotted a nice engine to build. The article required a number of castings in CI and GM. It seems back then all you had to do was knock up a few wood patterns and wander along to the friendly foundry to be found at every street corner and for a few pence they would pour your castings – probably while you waited.

So, was getting casting done ever an easy and cheap business. Did factories back then have scrap bins overflowing with 4" copper tube and lumps of GM for the taking? How much would the first Minnie have cost to build – for it all seems pretty expensive today – but then my wallet is pretty thin.

[Roger HartParticipant @rogerhart88496]

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Yes was far easier, our local town up to 15 years ago had three foundries, we have none now.

Industry was far busier, you only have to look around to see what companies are now retail parks or housing and with that industry came the opportunity to collect stuff at low cost.

Back then we owned a truck garage and literally did all the scrap trucks in this area as most of the scrap lads were intermarried and once you were in with one clan you were in with the rest. Automatic machines like turret lathes could only work a bar down to 11" to 14" long and this 'bar end ' was just scrapped, it had no real value as a one off and was available for free if you asked nice.

One company had a 20 tonne two axle tipping trailer that used to stand outside Erricsons telephones frame shop and all the clean offcuts of sheet, angle flat etc were just thrown into it. A phone call when it was full would mean a driver would take a tractor unit down with a new trailer, swap trailers and the first one went into Nottingham and was tipped then parked up. This happened at least twice a week.

No lie, I have seen 13' lengths of solid phosy bar thrown in the scrap because it's been ordered wrong and they didn't want to admit the mistake.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Maybe they would pour them for a few pence but what would you have been earning back in the 1920s? Its all realative.

Knocking up a few patterns would have involved a bit more work as it would all have had to be done with hand tools no cheap DIY tablesaws, planers, bandsaws or mass of cordless tools then. Also if making your own patterns there is going to be a saving over buying castings from a ME supplier as you are not paying for somebody else to make the pattern, store them, take them to a foundry, collect them along with the castings, tie up capital while they sit on a shelf and also earn a living from them.

There were certainly more foundries about then which would have made it easier to slip in a small one off, now you have to hunt them out. Same with small engineering firms that would have let you have a rumage through the scrap bin, now scrap is worth money so businesses can't afford to give it away. They probably also held more stock then and would cut a bit off for cash

 

But is it any harder today? Apart from buying castings from one of several suppliers we can sketch out a part in the comfort of our nice warm home, e-mail off the CAD file and get laser or water jet cut parts back. The same files can be sent to ME friendly companies that can then CNC cut a foam pattern to cast from or 3D print a pattern and lost wax or sand cast from those and just wait for the postie or courier firm to deliver.

Don't forget back in the day as getting things cast was easy they used more castings in a model, now if its a one off why not look to see how the parts in that model that has taken your eye can be cut from solid or fabricated, both methods are far easier now as a lot more modelers have a mill and far more tooling than the guy in the 20s with his treadle lathe working by gas light. Can you scan a photo of the model in question and post it here, would be interested to see what would really need to be cast.

 

J

Edited By JasonB on 17/04/2015 10:14:38

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

A very interesting question, Roger

John's experience goes a long way to answering it; but I'll add another angle if I may:

There are three basic ways of making 'structures'

Casting / Fabrication / Machining from Solid

and the price/performance ratio [= Value for Money] of these will vary with the prevailing technology.

…

MichaelG.

[LambtonParticipant @lambton]

Commercial castings for specific engines were very reasonably priced in the past. I have a1967 Stuart Models catalogue from which I found the following prices (decimalised) for engine kit including all casting and other materials, fastenings and the drawing.

No 1 vertical 2" bore 2" stroke £5.52

No 5a 2.25" bore 2" stroke £7.13

No 10 3/4" x 3/4" H or V version an unbelievable £1.52 – yes that it correct !

Even allowing for nearly 50 years inflation these prices sound very reasonable to me compared to todays prices.

[Roger Provins 2Participant @rogerprovins2]

Using an on-line comparison calculator it shows £5 in 1967 having the buying power of £83.21 now.

 

So, for instance, the 5a should be about £118 now to account for inflation.

Edited By Roger Provins 2 on 17/04/2015 11:31:45

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Things were a lot cheaper in some respects. Metal was all over the place, you would step over big lumps of rusty metal on wasteground which were ignored by everyone. Copper cable would lie around because it was worth a bag of chips, foundrys were pretty common, as was smoke, smog and dead lifeless rivers

The changes since the 1960s have been incredible

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I spoke to a chap who had got a test pit dug through a concrete pad on a site in the Black Country using a JCB.

He went back the next day and it had become a mine, apparently some locals pulled a huge amount of copper out of it.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

It's not the cost of castings, it's finding a foundry willing to mess around doing small one-offs.

Neil

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I don't think Stuarts have to look far for a foundry and they cast in batches not one offs

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Back in the early 1970s, I bought a semi-derelict Tauco bench drill – it had no table or knee bracket. A friend who also had a Tauco drill lent me the table and knee bracket from his machine (he and his father were still building their workshop).

After some initial negotiation, I took their table & bracket to Phil Gibbons at (if I remember correctly) the Fenny Baston foundry. Phil was, at that time, a regular ME advertiser. He applied pattern-maker's wax to the machined surfaces to replace the machining allowances and cast me replicas using my borrowed castings as patterns. (I wasn't worried about suffering a bit of shrinkage.) He said that the core in the knee bracket had caused him the most trouble – he had no core box and using the bracket as a pattern left him with no core prints. He eventually hand carved cores from a lump of baked oil-sand.

He cast me two tables and two knee brackets (it's always handy to have a spare!!!) for a total charge of £25.00. There was no shipping cost – I was within driving distance of the foundry.

On my first visit, he showed me round the foundry. There was a cupola at one end of the shop and he claimed that he used no scrap.  His 'bread & butter line' was the big cast iron rotors for the centrifugal pumps that drain(ed) the Fens. There were several flasks open with a rotor impression in the centre of the box but he'd also moulded sets of model loco wheels in the corners of the box!

I machined one of each casting at work in the lunch hour and at the West Ham Tech Model Engineering evening course. The borrowed castings were returned to their owner slightly waxy but otherwise unharmed.

Oh, if anyone needs a Tauco table (un-machined) just PM me.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

 

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 17/04/2015 13:20:47

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 17/04/2015 13:22:35

[Roger HartParticipant @rogerhart88496]

Just looked at the price of Stuart's Compound Launch casting set – about £265 which does not seem too bad if you can get the rest from the scrappy.

My comment was prompted by the airy way the author of my 1920s article (and others of that era) implied getting castings done was an easy matter. Certainly when I started work the factory scrap bin was a treasure trove and a word in the right ear would usually find almost any 'spare' material.

Still, the barbie season is upon us and I plan to have a go putting my old copy of 'Foundrywork for the Amateur' to use – if only for brass.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Well if its a compound launch engine from the 20s then the one serialised in 1923 will soon be available as castings, The first set are being made up into an engine at the moment. The castings for the one that was described in 1924 or very similar to it can be had from EJ Winter. The second one could certainly be farbriated/cut from solid as I was only looking at the drawings the other day and thinking of it.

J

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

I don't think they were cheap.

But I think everything else was even more expensive relatively. These days the cost of commercial machining has come down due to cnc, (unless they decide to charge as if it's being done by hand as some do, even if actually using cnc). However the cost of casting really can't be reduced a great deal by automation.

Regards,

Richard

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

I think up to the onset of the1970s foundries were everywhere, look at the older manhole covers as you walk the streets of your town, you might be surprised how locally the older ones were cast. After the 70s health and safety got them by the balls, and they closed. Can you imagine the H&S implications of setting up a commercial foundry today, absolute nightmare!

Phil

UK

[david newman 9Participant @davidnewman9]

I bought a set of Stuart beam engine castings complete with drawings an fixings from BONDS O EUSTON ROAD in about 1962 for £5.10 shillings but that was a lot of money then.

David

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

People soon forget how little the take home pay was in the 60's, so No 1 vertical 2" bore 2" stroke £5.52 for me in 1969 was a weeks wages but back then you could have a very good night out for a couple of quid.

My parents in 1962 paid £1760 for their bungalow, the one we purchased recently 4 miles away cost 165000.

The UK has lost a lot in the past 50 years and a lot of skills that were common will soon disappear.

Bob

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

Yes I remember taking home £3 pounds a week back in the sixties of which my mother took £2 for board and lodge.

It brakes my heart to think of things like a BSA A10 I bought for £5. A Velocette 500 Venom which a couple of mates and I enquired about and the guy gave it to us saying he could use the room in his garage. When I was 14 my old man paid £3 for a BSA Bantam (because the tyres were new) which he supervised the very thorough over hall including refiling both drive sprockets (gear box and rear wheel) by hand (mine) which were then taken back to his works to be heat treated and tempered again. I'm writing this thinking I'll bet people don't believe me. I can hardly believe it myself. One last good find of mine was a AJS G12 650cc with a Watsonian side car it was immaculate except for two things… The rag top on the chair was rotten and someone had over tightened the magneto brush holders putting a dimple in the slip ring which resulted in a bad misfire. Dad took the magneto to work and when reinstalled in the bike it roared into life. I kept it for a few years driving it to work. There were plenty of other finds and bargains to be had but I'll only bore you.

When a teen many local kids and I used to club together to buy stuff like Morris 'E' types or sit up and beg Populars, Vauxhall Wyverns, Hillmans and so on which we duly killed racing them down on the local common stock-car fashion. On a good weekend it was like a Keystone cop movie and a wonder no one was killed or seriously injured.

This was stuff we as teens temporarily restored to life to stave off boredom, well we didn't have computers back then did we?

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 19/04/2015 22:48:20

[Jesse Hancock 1Participant @jessehancock1]

It's not the cost of castings, it's finding a foundry willing to mess around doing small one-offs. Neil

Down here finding a foundry at all is the hard part. Travelling to Avonmouth where much of the areas heavy Industry was carried out and still is, you won't get by reception, unless of course you know someone in the factory.

This goes along with the (Corner Shop's Closing) thread.

Phil Whitley and Bob Brown are both correct but don't let what they are saying lead you into thinking we were all living the high life because we weren't. I've already spoken about my old man's propensity or tendency to always be under the bonnet of cars tinkering, fettling or fixing as the case may take. However it went with the period for the most part. Cars and motor cycles were not as reliable as today. The main faults I believe were carburetion and ignition both being prone to wearing out or slipping out of tune. ie cables stretching, nuts loosening, dust, dirt, water and rust contamination all playing their part.

I think the drive for more reliability was led by Honda in my experience with things like grease nipples in cables! Gone in an instant all that business of releasing cables and taping on home fashioned cardboard funnels, filling them with oil and allowing all day for the oil to run down inside the cable. The joy of taking a horizontally built engine apart as opposed to a vertically split British design. It's scary to think that it was in-trenched ideas of the bosses and lack of investment which has led to the present state of Britain today.

Edited By Jesse Hancock 1 on 20/04/2015 07:56:12

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Jesse Hancock 1 on 20/04/2015 07:51:35

:It's scary to think that it was in-trenched ideas of the bosses and lack of investment which has led to the present state of Britain today.

.

Bang on, give that man anything off the top shelf.

[Anonymous]

Posted by Jesse Hancock 1 on 20/04/2015 07:51:35:

It's scary to think that it was in-trenched ideas of the bosses and lack of investment which has led to the present state of Britain today.

That's only half the story. Equally to blame were intransigent unions, keen to maintain pay differentials and demarcation; and hence often against investment in new equipment.

Andrew

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Foreign managers/companies came here and now build hundreds of thousands of decent cars in the UK each year, and with the same workforce

British Managers are useless, every car company in existence in the 1960s has disappeared, British managers even managed to trash the Black cab company, a totally unique and iconic vehicle

Even Fiat and Alfa Romeo have survived to today, unlike our own car companies, and we all know how "good" they were back in the 70s 80s

British Managers, after trashing British Industry, are now in high flying jobs in the Health, Education and Public services sector… and we all know how fabulously well those industries are doing…

This is Darwinism at work, and Britain is doomed unless we change

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Ady1 on 20/04/2015 11:32:21:

Foreign managers/companies came here and now build hundreds of thousands of decent cars in the UK each year, and with the same workforce

No where near true, look at most of the foreign companies and they still have home grown managers but from a different breed. Andrew also hit the nail on the head in that they had to deal with unions on unions terms. The modern companies have a far different setup.

 

[edit] CNC factory up the road from me, making parts for Boeing and Airbus, 40 odd workers, all the latest tech machines, flat out with work, in fact was working all day Sunday and Sunday night when I went past. No union. A few years ago this would never have been tolerated so that's one headache reduced for all concerned.

 

 

True same workforce to an extent although the modern worker isn't entrenched in unions as much and the main thing is the repetitive boring jobs have gone to be replaced by robots.

 

Things like the black cab are just natural progression, like the old blue Invacar and the Dennis fire engines.

Why make a specialised high cost basically hand made vehicle in this age when you can get a base model off the production line and modify it. The cost saving is enormous and we all know how purchases are based around cost. Probably no more so than the average model engineer.

 

Then base it on quantity, how many new black cabs and fire engines would be bought today in say a year, not that many but the sales would have to support a factory and work force. In the mean while Scania probably pull a small percentage of standard trucks off the line to be converted into fire engines for the whole of the EU market, not just the UK

Edited By John Stevenson on 20/04/2015 11:48:05

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

One British company which has impressed me is Rolls Royce Aero Engines

Luckily they went bust in the 1970s and not when Maggie was in charge or they would have been toast

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