tarboat's photos with the keyword: metal

Imerys Aluminates offers a varied range of high-tech calcium aluminate binders. These products, with numerous properties, are designed for refractory, building chemistry and technical concrete applications, mining, pipes and wastewater, and metallurgical flux.

The lead shot tower stands in the centre of the lead smelting complex of the Baiyin Nonferrous Group Co Ltd. This is just one of a number of metal processing works in the area which have been developed since the 1950s to handle large amounts of copper, zinc and lead. To the right is the depot and works of the mining railway and the extensive sorting sidings behind the photographer.

The main access into the copper/silver mines above Wallah Gorge is via a long tunnel to the workings. This was developed by Burmah Mines Ltd in 1914 and is named 'Tiger Tunnel'.

Pay office at the mine exit above Wallah Gorge on the Burma Mines Railway. The Tiger Tunnel into the mine is in the cutting and this is marked by a Tiger Head sculpture just below the footbridge. Armed guards are everywhere around the mines due to the threat of attack by separatists. Since this visit the area has become closed after serious attacks and many deaths.

Water Tower at the former central power station, Eyre Street, Broken Hill.

Pacific National locos NR9 and NR113 pause at broken Hill with an eastbound container train. The building on the spoil tip is a cafe with the Line of Lode Miners Memorial to the left.

Metal processing is the major industry in this part of Baiyin using the lead, copper and silver wrested from the ground nearby. I have no idea just what was going on inside these brutalist structures but the plume says a lot about Chinese industry in the remoter areas.. I note from the recent satellite photos that this works has now closed and is largely demolished.

McKechnie Brothers Limited, metal merchants and producers of copper sulphate, titanium sponge and other materials, established their Widnes smelting works works in 1891. This lettering is over the door of the administrative block on Ditton Road in Widnes which now stands partly empty.

No.1 winder for the Marmion Shaft at the Bawdwin mine in north-east Myanmar. This was manufactured at the Siemens Works of English Electric at Stafford in the UK in 1925 and has been continuously in use since. The motor drive is rated at 295hp using 550 volts and drawing up to 436 amps. The No.2 winder is situated above and behind in the same building. Both units wind from a single shaft that is 1700ft deep and serves 14 levels. Currently the workings are flooded up to the sixth (adit) level at c700ft due to the pumps being switched off. The mine produces high grade ore containing silver, lead, zinc, and a little copper and gold. An image grabbed in great haste. This is in a military area and normally closed to outsiders. The industrial premises here are not officially open to view.

This metal mine had the stone blocks for a plateway remaining in the floor of one of the main access levels. To check on the possible plates used we took a couple of Outram type plates into the mine and discovered that they fitted the blocks perfectly. This gave the opportunity to relay a short section by taking multiple shots from a fixed point as we moved the plates along the tunnel. This is a composite of five images blended together. I am extremely glad that we did not have to carry more than two plates into the mine, they are very heavy.

McKechnie Brothers Limited, metal merchants and producers of copper sulphate, titanium sponge and other materials, established their Widnes smelting works works in 1891. This administrative block on Ditton Road in Widnes dates from 1920 and now stands partly empty.

Advert from Modern Gasworks Practice 1921. Lewis Cockey came to Frome about 1685 from Warminster and established a bell foundry. The family business diversified in the 18th century and in the early 19th century began casting for the Gas Industry. Edward Cockey (1781-1860) became a successful iron-founder and in 1816 founded the firm which by 1851 was employing 76 men and boys in the Palmer Street foundry as Edward Cockey & Sons Ltd. In 1886 this became a limited company and in 1893 the works moved to the Garston area of the town. The Frome Gas Company was founded by Cockey and the town had had gas street liqhting as early as 1831. They made ‘art nouveau’ gas light standards with a leaf pattern were made by Cockey. The firm was wound up voluntarily in April 1960 leaving a legacy of bollards, drain covers and lamp standards, many displaying the name.

Five Star corrugated iron seen in the locomotive works in Asmara, Eritrea. I think the symbol on the left of the stars incorporates E & S for Ethiopian Steel.

R. Goodwin and Sons (Engineers) Ltd, as it was then, was an iron foundry and engineering company supplying castings and equipment to local pottery, mining and steel making industry. Their Ivy House Foundry continues in business and the firm is now known as Goodwin Steel Castings Limited. Historic images here: www.goodwinsteelcastings.com/en/goodwin/history

Maldon Ironworks Company Ltd was incorporated in March 1872 in Maldon, Essex. The company had been moved from Broad Street Green, Heybridge, Essex, by Samuel Warren in 1853. These new premises were erected in Fullbridge, Maldon in 1875. The company was bought out in 1947 by John Sadd and Sons Ltd, timber merchants who were themselves subsequently acquired by Boulton and Paul Ltd, engineers, of Norwich, Norfolk. Maldon Ironworks continued to operate as the agricultural engineering factory of John Sadd until 1955 when the factory was converted into a TV/Radio cabinet factory managed by Maldon Woodwork Ltd, and continued as such until December 1981 when the premises were closed and put up for sale. The building is now in multiple occupation including a gym.

The new smelter at Namtu was constructed after the Second World War during which the old smelter was destroyed. It processed lead, silver, zinc and copper from the Bawdwin mines but has been out of use for some time. It was suggested that it would reopen in 2012 but I have not heard anything of this since my visit.

A long flue leads to this chimney from the old lead/zinc smelter at Namtu. The lack of vegetation on the hillside around the chimney is a good indication of the heavy metal fallout.

Cable manufacturer Nexans has a factory in Charleroi just across the railway from the mothballed steelworks.