Our work

Eight pieces of delivered work, and the engineering constraint that decided each one. Told from our side of it, because the customer’s side is theirs to tell.

Selected work

What the constraint actually was

Every job has one thing that decided the outcome. It is rarely the obvious one, and it is the only part worth reading. Open any card for the detail.

The challenge

Stainless is unforgiving. Every weld, every handling mark and every grinding scratch stays visible in the finished item, and the specification is as much about appearance and cleanability as it is about load.

Engineering approach

Weld sequence planned to keep heat input low and distortion out of the stringers. TIG throughout on visible joints. Handling and storage controlled through the build so the finished surface did not have to be recovered at the end.

Processes

Materials

304 / 316 stainless steel
Stainless handrail sections

The challenge

Balustrade in a commercial building is looked at every day at arm's length by people who are not engineers. It has to satisfy loading requirements and survive that scrutiny.

Engineering approach

Detailed for repeatability across the run so that panels read as a set rather than as individual fabrications. Joints dressed and finished to a consistent standard agreed with the architect before the first panel was built.

Processes

Materials

Mild steel
Stainless steel
Glass infill panels

The challenge

An access ramp carries a person. It is deployed repeatedly by operators under time pressure, in weather, and the consequence of a defect is physical rather than commercial. The binding constraint is not strength on its own. It is strength, weight and deployment force together. A ramp strong enough but too heavy to deploy has failed just as completely as one that bends.

Engineering approach

Designed and fabricated to rigorous safety standards, with every unit double quality-checked before it leaves the works. Weight controlled through section selection rather than by thinning material at the load path.

Processes

Materials

Aluminium
Mild steel
Stainless fixings

The challenge

A chassis is a jig problem before it is a welding problem. Node positions have to hold through a build that puts significant heat into a space frame, and a chassis that has moved is scrap rather than rework.

Engineering approach

Fixtured build with a controlled weld sequence to manage distortion. Dimensional check against the drawing at the points where an error becomes expensive to unpick, not only at the end.

Processes

Jig and fixture work
TIG welding
Fabrication
Dimensional inspection

Materials

Steel tube
Sheet

The challenge

Vehicle interiors are a three-way constraint: every kilogram is payload lost, the environment is wet and corrosive, and the finish is seen and touched by the end customer.

Engineering approach

Material and section chosen for the corrosion environment rather than the cheapest option that meets the load. Fabricated as sub-assemblies so the manufacturer fits complete modules rather than individual parts.

Processes

Materials

Stainless steel
Aluminium
Mild steel

The challenge

Heritage work inverts the usual priority order. The specification is largely about what the finished item must appear to be, and the engineering has to be arranged behind that constraint rather than in front of it.

Engineering approach

Developed in CAD and the detail settled before fabrication began, rather than negotiated afterwards on site. On conservation work that sequencing is the whole lesson of the job: what is agreed on the drawing is what gets built.

Processes

Materials

Mild steel
Traditional ironmongery

The challenge

Broadcast equipment is deployed and struck repeatedly, at speed, by crews who are not engineers and are working to a transmission time. A mechanism that requires care will be forced.

Engineering approach

Folding safety features designed around the way crews actually work: positive location, obvious states, and no trapping points. Mechanisms specified to survive a duty cycle far beyond the nominal one.

Processes

Design
Fabrication
Welding
Mechanism build

Materials

Steel
Aluminium

The challenge

A hauling drum has to be concentric, balanced and quiet. Fabricated construction gets the cost and the lead time; machining gets the accuracy. Neither on its own produces a drum that runs true.

Engineering approach

Fabricated body machined after welding so that the bore and running faces were cut concentric with the assembly rather than with the individual parts.

Processes

Materials

Mild steel
Machined bushes

On names and numbers

We do not publish our customers’ business

Much of this work sits inside somebody else’s product, vehicle or building, and several of these customers compete with each other. We name none of them here, and we publish no quantities, programme durations or contract values without written permission, which we have not asked for and would not assume.

If you want to talk about work closer to your own, ask. A conversation about what was actually involved is more useful than a page of tonnages anyway, and it is the conversation we would rather have.

Ask about similar work

Range

A shop that only ever makes one product loses the ability to solve an unfamiliar problem.

Unfamiliar problems are what customers actually ring about. In a single week the shop might build a stainless staircase, a chassis component, a set of access ramps and a piece of heritage metalwork.

Have something similar in mind?

Send a drawing, a photograph, or a description of what you need. We will tell you whether we are the right supplier before either of us spends money finding out.

Request a quotation Talk to an engineer