Construction Blog

19th January, William Cook Cast Products prepared and cast the first wheel in a mould proving run. The photo below is the final result.

The almost complete product. The first B17 wheel to be cast since 1937! Five more to go........

Photo courtesy of William Cook Cast products.

The photos below show the second wheel mould being checked and then the pouring of the molten steel into the (already) clamped first wheel mould.

Casting of the second wheel took place on 20th January. They will then need to cool down for 5 days before the cast wheels can be removed from the mould and checked. After cooling, the first wheel will be extracted from the mould and subjected to Normalising, Shot Blasting, Mechanical Testing, Dimensional Inspection, Visual Inspection, Magnetic Particle Inspection (MPI), Radiographic Examination, Ultrasound Testing, Stress Relief, Dimensional Inspection and Proof Machining. All wheels will be subjected to this non destructive testing regime.

The 2nd and 3rd pairs of Driving Wheels will be cast in subsequent weeks.

After removal of both halves of the wooden wheel pattern, complete shapes of the front face and rear face are contained in compressed sand in the Left Hand Moulding Box (Top Half) and the Right Hand Moulding Box (Bottom Half).

Steel is poured from the furnace into the ladle lined with glass/ceramic material at a temperature of 1630°C.

Both halves of moulding box are secured together and steel at 1590°C is poured from the ladle to deliver approx 2 tons of material into the mould in approx. 35 seconds.

Looking almost like an alien spaceship, this is how the wheel appears straight after being knocked out of the mould. It is shown being moved into the shotblasting cabinet for the next process.

The wheel is inserted into the shotblasting container. Once the doors are shut the wheel is shotblasted to remove all the excess material.

All photos in this section by Tony Brzosko.