This order was for the supply of two presses. Each press had 24 daylights.
The last four photographs have been scanned from a small collection received from John Davis. They were originally photographed by Turners (Photography) Ltd., Newcastle upon Tyne, the records of which are held in the Tyne & Wear Archives.
Click on a photograph to enlarge an image.
Click on this hyperlink to see a brief Engineering Specification for this press.
Click on the hyperlink to see other Notable Orders from the 1950s.
If you remember designing, machining, fitting, installing, maintaining, or working with this machine please share your memories at the bottom of the page by clicking on the words Add a comment about this page.
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The team involved on site installation of these presses as I remember, were Tony Barton, (who ran the team), Bob Harding, Apprentices, John Cresswell, Derek (Noddy) Bennett and myself. Stan Willetts was the electrical guru. We all stayed at the at The Station Hotel pub in Whitley Bay. We worked twelve days straight, then two days home before back to site. I do believe there were other F & P people who came up to help on occasions, but time as eroded my brain.
Hi all! Many thanks to John, Bert and Jim for all the background history and the names of people involved with this press. Without your additional valuable input, it would be just be a photo of another machine. I hope the memories were good ones! John B
I worked on the design of the conveyor systems for this. Esmond Sergeant was Section Engineer, Eric Johnson and Eric Penning were Section Leaders. Others were George Claridge, Wim (Mitch) Migchielsen, Ray Hecquet and Keith Harding.
Yes! I had the task of commissioning the electrical control system for this fully automated plant. The system comprised two presses, one for making the plywood and the other for pressing the laminate onto the plywood with a plain colour on one side and a patterned one on the other side. The finished product was known as Beauty – Board. A most interesting and cleverly designed machine both from the mechanical and electrical aspects.
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