The Estate - Bevendean History Project
Brighton Sheet Metal Company at Bevendean continued 2
A History of the factory and its layouts
- The first time I was in the factory the factory was divided up into sections. One of the largest areas was the tool stores, this was on the west side of the building. This was surrounded by mesh walls and had numerous racks for holding all of the press tools, both very small and huge, some weighing several tons. They all had to be moved using pump up trucks with very little assistance. There were steps that led up to an upper storey above the tools stores and this was the part finished stores, it also had rows and racks and was always a real mess.
- The press shop was along the centre of the factory and had numerous presses of various sizes mostly 50 ton and 20 ton. There was one very large double action press that could draw metal and produce boxes, and this press made lots and lots of Allen West switch boxes for years. In later years the company acquired a 120 ton press, a 150 ton press and a 200 ton press.
- Fly presses – There was a little row to the east of the main presses for producing very small items.
- To the east of the fly presses were the welders, all in bays of various sizes, and to the east of them running along the east wall were the spot welding machines.
- The paint shop was south of the spotwelders and welders, where was also the metal finishing area was located.
- The inspection was focused in the centre of the factory, and south of this were the sheet metal workers and south them were the brake presses.
- On the west side of the factory was the stores for other items, files, drills, etc and the main guillotine area and sheet metal store. Most of the metal was cut up using the guillotines and there were two or three of these. The main material entrance to the factory was also in the south west corner of the factory.
- Outside and to the south was the location of a planing machine, which removed the top skin from heavy lumps of steel plate, and a plate cutting area. It was extremely messy area and often when planing the bed of the machine would shoot off of the machine and end up on the floor, so not too much health and safety in those days.
- The tool room was right at the north end of the factory with the windows facing north. It was a little enclave with a pair of milling machines, a couple of lathes, a band saw, a filing machine and a couple of grinding machines. There was also a couple of ovens and a large vat of oil for hardening and tempering the tool steel items. Bill Baily’s office was also there. There was a very large lathe and a large grinding machine up against the east wall of the tool stores, and there were a small drill section to the east of these, both backing onto the press shop.
- The offices were all upstairs as was the canteen. The first aid and little sweet shop was manned by Gertie Fuller, a formidable lady, who put fear into everyone, except Bill Baily, who I think fancied her.
- The drawing office was upstairs and there were no adding machines in 1962, all calculations were using logarithms or a very complex adding machine which was never used. There was a printing machine that smelt of ammonia and was awful. This machine would copy drawings for the tool room and in the workshop. The paper stores were also located in a couple of elevated rooms that had stairs down to the shop floor. These stairs were used by Ted Preston for quite a while. There was an office at the top of the steps which was where he did the calculations for his templates for the Wiedemann machine. This was a machine that used punching templates to produce the same item over and over again.
- The Wiedemann Machine was located south of the press shop and a little to the west of the factory. It was a new technique that used a template with holes that allowed accurate copies to be made.
- In about 1964 BSM took on a project in association with Ranalah moulds and work from Costain Concrete. It was steel moulds for producing railway concrete sleepers and BSM and RM made hundreds, if not thousands of these products. They were huge items with steel inner and outer skins. They frequently changed the design so Charlie Brown was always having to redevelop the various sections, but it mean’t lots of work. During this time the welding section was expanded into the outer south section of the factory which was not enclosed. The whole of the south side of the factory became a major welding section. It was during a bitter cold winter, that huge tarpaulins were purchased and draped down from the upper stanchions to keep out the wind. The whole section was full of burning braziers trying to keep the welders warm. By this time the metal cutting and planing has been ditched and the machinery removed.
- In 1966 BSM acquired a factory at Moulsecoomb Way and in the summer of 1967 the tool room and a small press shop were moved out to that location. A later addition used a small building as an additional paint shop. Dave Underhill worked here, he has been working down at the Brighton Musuem for years now. The press shop at Moulescoomb only had small presses up to about 20 ton, and a small number of fly presses. There was also a room used for checking Ministry products, and they had their own team in liaison with the SM inspection. Peter Cooper ran the press shop, a very larger than life person who was always fair and good to work with.
- The drawing office also moved to Moulsecoomb with Charlie Brown in his own very large office and the rest of us in the adjacent smaller one. There were generally 3 draughtmen, Malcolm Holman, me and a young lad, the first being Nigel, a real character. Later when Malcolm Holman became a director, and then moved back to Bevendean, Charlie moved into the main office. He kept the same drawing board at the top of the section even when only working part time, but he knew his engineering, and was a superb tool designer. There were cabinets full of paper drawings running along one side of the office. It was over here that we gained our first adding machine, it was huge and did very little, but within only a couple of years calculating machine had shrunk and were doing so much more.
- Sometime in the 1970’s BSM took on a heating device designed by a local inventor, can’t remember his name, but I think that it was Alf. He was in his 60’s and had very white hair, he was quite a bright person. The new project was called the Ranalah Heater. The designer had his office at the top and front of the Moulsecoomb building. BSM produced quite a number of these heating machines, but sadly when the inventor died, so did his expertise and the project was dropped.
- In about 1982 I went on a course down to Chandlers Ford to understudy Ted Preston who was going on holiday. It was a training exercise. While there I was shown a Wiedematic punch machine which allowed for multi components to be manufactured on our Wiedemann
- Wiedemann machines. Phillip Layfield visited the company and bought one the same week. Ted Preston, Bill Swaffield and I then went on a training course, and came back spending a busy few weeks transferring most of the single punching to multi punching, it was quite a major step forward using modern technology.
- During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the Moulsecoomb factory expanded moving into the adjacent premise to the west. The amount of IBM main frame computer work and Petters required more space, and a new welding shop and paint shop was created, this was expanded even later again at the back.
- Sadly the invention of the PC computer and the silicon chip saw the demise of the large main frame computer and the IBM work virtually vanished overnight. The toolroom and drawing moved back to lower Bevendean in 1984 after 17 years at Moulsecoomb.
- The drawing office and engineering was now up stairs in the offices. This area had now changed and was not an open plan office. The canteen was removed and not replaced.
- The last major tooling project took place at this time and tooling for about 5 large components for IBM Scotland was the last major tooling project using the large presses was undertaken. The tool room was now in the location of the old paint shop, which in turn had moved up stairs into the Harrimonde factory. This was to be the last major tooling project, although there was some large tooling for Apricot Computer parts, and some complex tooling for television parts for Mitsubishi, but gradually tooling and press work was phased out.
- By this time Phil Clarke had become the managing Director, with Phillip Layfield moving to Norfolk with Ranalah Farm.
- Phil Clarke rapidly expanded the Wiedemann press area and eventually changed these for more sophisticated Triumph presses, which used multi head tooling. Most of the tooling work was transferred to these machines. Phil Clarke also upgraded the brake press section purchasing a number of new brake presses with modern data logging facilities. He was also responsible for creating the new paint shop with a continuous line painting facility along with some of the paint booths. The production had become highly mechanised.
- Engineering purchased a number of CAD systems and employees were sent to Radan in Bath for training using their software. This was later expanded to include 3D working which rapidly allowed development of customer parts to become much easier and quicker.
- Phil Clarke sadly was a workaholic, and hands on Director. He sometimes did not leave the factory until 11-00 pm and was often back at work by 2-00 am. This did take its toll and he eventually had a break down. Phillip Layfield took over the role of managing director.
- In about 2007 Bill Taylor was employed as Managing Director, and continued until about 2016. Recent Managers have included Geoff long, who retired, Dave Fitchie and Gary Mansell. Engineering has been run by Bob Jones and Steve Rhodes.
- A new section was created in the Harrimonde factory specifically for assembly and this included part of the west section of the paint shop and the main despatch area.
- Brighton Sheetmetal Ltd has had numerous ups and downs over a century, and is was still a major employer in the Brighton area until it closed in March 2018.
