Images from the Soho Foundry

Just saw this on ebay and wanted to share it. I think it is awesome.

We won't ask what you were doing searching for Soho

I presume its Tangye's workshops

Edited By JasonB on 23/04/2017 10:05:09

Machine beds and columns made of bricks!

Edited By Ed Duffner on 23/04/2017 12:14:22

I know a Tangye

She says she hated the place!

Neil

Makes those big radial drills look positively portable in comparison.

Fizzy, have a read of L.T.C Rolt's Tools For The Job, quite a lot of info on Boulton and Watts Soho Foundry and the machines they built and used. A fascinating book although I believe criticised by some.

Mike

Thanks for that Mike - lots of other similar pictures of the place also, awesome stuff.

What are the two guys in the corner saying?
"... No! I turned the handle yesterday..."

Or

"Are we just for scale?"

"Yes"

Edited By Nick Hulme on 25/04/2017 08:47:29

"What's the tapping drill size for 4BA?"

"I presume its Tangye's workshops".

Tangyes were established in Cornwall Works, Soho Foundry which was next door, was indeed the stamping (ooh!) ground of Boulton, Watt and Murdock.

As a native Brummie (you can tell by the shamrock in the turban) these two outfits are part of my personal and family history.

My great-grandmother was a servant in Boulton's house, one of the the first to have interior gas lighting. I went to Matthew Boulton Tech. College. During WWII the adjoining gas holder in Smethwick Gas Works was hit by a bomb; it didn't blow up, just produce an enormous rushing flame out of the top like a giant Roman candle. My late father was one of the NFS crew who put it out. My wife's family all worked at Tangyes,

Eug

I think there was a photo 20+ years ago in ME of a lathe with a faceplate at the same place, I think the faceplate was 20ft + in diameter, work out the revs per hour for that with a carbon steel lathe tool.

Ian S C

About 1 rpm or less!

I have used a lathe with a 72" face plate and we used to put a chalk mark on it and count the revs!

This is an excerpt from Rolts book, must have been quite a machine for that day and age.

Mike

A new and much heavier boring mill was constructed and the boring bar for this was supplied by the Lowmoor Ironworks in May 1799. It weighed 3½ tons and may well have been the bar which was still lying in a disused state at Soho in 1895. If so, it was hollow, 17 feet 6 inches long, 16 inches in diameter and 4 inches thick. Presumably it was originally fitted with a form of rack feed to the cutting head because Murdock was not responsible for introducing lead-screw feed as has sometimes been stated.

A 64-inch cylinder was the first to be bored on this massive machine and a record of the operation has been preserved to show what a lengthy and laborious business it was. It reads as follows:

Getting on, ¾ day.

Centring and fixing, 1½ days.

Facing, ½ day.

Setting Cutter, ½ day.

Boring, 11½ days.

Preparing to go through a second time, 1 day.

Boring, 8½ days.

Facing, 1¼ days.

Bell-mouthing, 1½ days.

Getting off, ½ day.

Total, 27½ working days.