Mechanics and Riveters Fred Dibnah's Made in Britain

Fred Dibnah is now halfway through his tour of Britain

in search of the things that went into building a traction engine like this.

He's still in Yorkshire and he's on his way to the Bolt & Rivet Manufacturing Company

where they made all the rivets he used when he was rebuilding the engine.

The engine is running a lot better than it was when he first set out,

but all sorts of little things can go wrong, which means lots of stops.

He's having problems with the mechanical lubricator again.

They don't like running without any oil in the cylinder especially if you prime 'em

an' it washes what bit of oil there is away and...gets like a residue that's not slippy.

You know, just a little drop of oil is enough, but if you wash it all away it's bad news.

One of the things Fred loves about his engine is the craftsmanship that went into building it.

The skills of makin' things in Victorian times were highly valued. Stuff they made,

like the beginning of locomotive construction and traction engines, they were much more beautiful

and shapes and ornate with their fancy work.

They did have an eye for nice things without a shadow of a doubt.

I think somehow or other, we've sort of lost all that now.

We're not as prepared as we used to be to get our hands dirty and hard work.

The Victorians, I admired them in a way.

Whether it was engineering, architecture, or the decoration of their buildings,

Fred loves the work of the Victorian age and while he's here in Yorkshire,

he passes a place where some of those decorative craft skills are still being kept alive.

Being Fred, he can't resist dropping in.

-What've we stopped here for?

-This is Andy Thornton's.

When the wholesale demolition of our lovely Victorian era started,

he started collecting all fancy bits and there's not so many left now

so they've gathered a team of craftsmen that are capable of doing fancy wood carving and all sorts.

These things are a gift from heaven, aren't they? Routers - save a lot of effort, a lot of grafting.

Ooh!

These are carvings to go on...

er, we build these big American-style Brunswick bars...

-and that'll be an applique when it's finished.

-Yeah, yeah.

And this is one of the corbels that'll go in the centre.

A huge bar. Massive ones.

And these are...it's a copy of one of the original Brunswick bars

which were the most famous bars ever made in America.

Yeah, wherever we go you meet people and they say,

"They can't do that now," you know and, "The age of the craftsmen has gone." But you and I know it hasn't.

You've got all these lovely carvings, and a grand team of lads that you've got together.

How do you go about finding people these days?

We take on three or four apprentices every year

and we select carefully and so most of our people are actually home-grown.

-They have to serve their apprenticeship.

-Having said that,

Malcolm trained elsewhere and we feel very fortunate to have found Malcolm, to have him

-because carving is one the most difficult...

-Heckish difficult job. Never ceases to amaze me.

We'll go and have a chat with Malcolm.

-Hi, Fred, how are you?

-I'm all right, mate.

You can't do it fast, can you?

Er, well, you can't, no.

I think with a few lessons I might be all right at doing something like that.

-Right, Fred, erm...

-Can I have a go?

-Would you like a go?

-You've got me best chisel there!

-You do get attached to tools, don't you?

-Yes.

-Yeah! I'll put me proper...

-They're like a girlfriend those.

-I'll put me proper glasses on and then I can see what I'm doing.

-Well, it affects us all.

Yeah, this old age and senility, you know... Wait a minute, I've forgotten how...

Just read the grain and when you feel there is a resistance there, come back the other way.

-I'm going too deep there, aren't I?

-No, you're all right.

-Sure?

-Yeah.

Gonna bugger it up now, aren't we?!

Just do it until you think that it's right.

Well, a thing of beauty...

-Is a joy forever.

-Yes, that's it.

-Something like that.

-Yeah!

I'm a little bit, a little bit low down actually, I think. I could do with a box for stand on.

I think it'd take me a long time though!

I don't know, you're getting there, it's not too... I've seen worse than that!

-You've seen worse!

-No, I don't mean that!

-I know what you mean, yeah!

-Well, that's very good.

-It's not...

not quite perfect at the top!

-No such thing as perfection.

-No, you're bloody right! The harder you try the worse it goes!

-Anyway, I enjoyed that. Thank you very much.

-Yeah, it's nothing...

-Nothing you can't put right!

This is the decorative cut glass department. This is Stuart.

-Pleased to meet you, Stuart.

-Hello.

Keep going, I don't want to disturb you!

Yeah, that's lovely that. I thought all this had all faded away, eh?

There aren't many people left in the country who can do this.

-This is brilliant cutting onto sheet glass.

-Yeah.

-What I'm doing here is I've already cut it in on the grinding wheels and now I'm polishing it up.

-Yeah.

We're using a wooden disc

-with pumice powder from, er, finest volcanic ash.

-Is it?

-That'll be hard, won't it? Tough.

-It's tough. It's what they used to use instead of sandpaper.

How long has it taken you to actually make that piece of...that piece?

Probably about ten hours work in total.

I thought it'd have been longer than that.

Yeah, you've got to have a very steady hand for this, haven't you?

-Yeah.

-And where's that going to go when it's done?

In a pub called The Baron and Baroness in, er...

-Copenhagen, isn't it?

-Copenhagen.

-Oh.

Why does it all go abroad?

-There's too many vandals in England who'd break it!

-A lot goes abroad

because people are wanting to recreate the traditional English pub

and regard the brilliant cut glass as the feature of an English pub.

The pub where I first started drinking had a front door... it were as wide as it were high.

It were really beautiful and...it's gone, you know, somebody busted it.

Some modernistic vandal.

HORN TOOTS

Bye-bye.

Boys toys on a grand scale.

Or a scary monster if you're only two!

But don't worry it's not going to be here for long.

Fred's back en route for the rivet manufacturers he was heading for,

but not without another problem on the way - the lubrication system.

Oh, no, it's right now.

We ended up with what's termed a hot box, in locomotive terms.

It's all right now. We've put plenty of oil in it and it's cooled down.

If it's getting too hot, it starts bubbling.

We filled the boiler hard up to the top, we couldn't move the engine

so we had to empty the boiler by blowing it down onto the road.

-Wait a minute.

-Now it's going.

-A little bit more.

-That's it. Right, contact.

-Oh, she's going now!

-Eh?

-She's going now!

With the steam blown up and the hotbox cooled down, they're soon on their way again.

When I rebuilt my boiler on my traction engine I had a great deal of trouble finding rivets,

especially made of the right material. At one time,

every little town and hamlet had its own nut and bolt maker and rivet maker.

The invention of electric arc welding put all these men virtually out of business.

Once rivets were crucial. They held together everything from things like my boiler to the Forth Bridge.

Here, at the Bolt & Rivet Manufacturing Company,

they were able to make solid rivets the old-fashioned way in just the sizes that Fred needed.

-I've brought your rivets back but they're all stuck in my boiler!

-Good.

As long as they do the job well.

The ones you made us are all these round here and all them down there.

They're going better every day.

I believe you're going to have a go and make some?

Oh, that'd be nice, yeah.

Well, nobody told me, you know, but we'll, er...

Let's all walk to the business end then.

The Bolt & Rivet Manufacturing Company specialises in hot forging large bolts and solid rivets

for the ship-building, bridge-building and boiler-making industries.

They make about 400,000 a year.

-This is a rivet forging machine.

-Yeah.

I'm going to show you the last forging machine in the country making hot forge rivets.

-Can I have a go?

-You go ahead.

-I'll go and see Kevin, the man in the middle.

-Kevin, that's right.

Rivets are made by three men -

the heater who is responsible for getting the metal hot and workable,

the forger who actually bashes it into shape...

..and the clipper who trims it to the right size.

-How am I doing then?

-OK.

-How many of these do you do in a day?

-Between 2,000 and 2,500.

-That's quite a quite a lot.

-Yeah.

-I bet you know it's tea time.

-We're glad we're done.

Next stop now is the workshops of the Midland Railway near Ripley in Derbyshire

where locomotive repair is done on a large scale, so there's plenty of riveting to see there.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were hundreds of steam engine manufacturers based in Great Britain

and of course they'd manufactured everything from traction engines to railway locomotives

and stationary engines which were exported to practically every nation in the world.

Today, there are very few commercial steam engine builders and repairers

but now we've reached Derbyshire on our grand tour

and we're going to go to a railway workshop where repairs are done on quite a grand scale.

But on their way to the railway, there's a distraction.

-Hey, hey! Stop!

-I have done, yeah.

-That looks good.

It's an old pit shaft there with winding gear up.

Jimmy's rejoined Fred and Alf after getting back from his holidays.

With two ex-miners on board, they couldn't drive past the remains of an old pit without stopping.

How old do you reckon this is, Fred?

Oh, it's bloody ancient that, innit?

Look at them lovely window frames. They've been lovely them, once.

Staffordshire blue bricks.

-Ready for a coat of renovation.

-It needs pointing. Have you got any spare time?

-You can see in here.

-Is there any runners for t'cage?

-No, can't see any.

-Let's have a look at this engine.

-It's a long time since this saw any work.

-Yeah.

Somebody's jacked it up and pinched the brasses out.

And this once were a steam engine but it's been converted to electric.

-There's shafts...

-Yeah, yeah, for a...for motor.

It's way off line for that pulley, this.

I don't think it's ever run a wire over the big wheel because it's way out of line.

They found out later that what they'd come across was what's left

of the Western upcast mine which was closed during the First World War.

Let's have a look if there's owt left in the engine house.

-Might get lucky.

-You never know, might come across a priceless gem.

Hey, it's open, Fred, this door.

We'll go and have a look.

Want a peg up?

Pity we haven't got a torch

and we could see. It's dark, innit?

-A fair bull's-eye on that signal.

-They're signals them, aren't they?

-So does all this stuff belong to the railway?

-Yeah, it must do.

Over there, in t'other side of the fence, there's loads of signal poles,

timber for signals and, um...

Look at that there.

Look at them lovely window frames. There's the er...

-The indicator.

-..the indicator board there, see.

It's been a long time since a block of wood went up and down there.

Now for the railway workshops and a bit of mechanicing and riveting.

Oh, we've made it. Here we are, Midland Railway Centre.

-It looks a busy place, doesn't it?

-Plenty of stuff here.

Are we going to see any of this boiler work going on while we're here?

We'll get rid of this, tuck this away in a corner somewhere and we'll go and have a wander, eh?

-Right, go on then. I'm ready.

-Yeah, right.

Now, a bit of grooving...

Here in the workshops of the Midland Railway Centre

locomotive repairs and rebuilds are done on a large scale,

mostly by volunteers who just do it for the love of it.

Probably never did much work.

This is Somerset and Dorset of course.

I always wanted to be able to have a day out and explore where the Somerset and Dorset had been.

-We've got an eight horse Ranson's traction boiler here.

-Mm.

-Brand new throat plate in, pressed by the Woodbine establishment.

-Ah, Mr Stuart.

Stuart himself did it. There's been quite a bit of building done.

To all intents and purposes, it's waiting riveting now.

And how long will it be before Fred gets his hands on this?

-Yeah.

-See, it's all action.

-It breathes unhealthy smoke, that engine.

-Morris Minor engine.

It's funny, you know, when they've just gone in and they come out

-and they're still bloody hot and you can't help but want to touch them!

-Aye, I know.

-They're so beautiful.

I'm a great one for dropping 'em when you get...

Mind you, if you were doing it all day every day, building a big ship, you could get used to it, eh?

A little bit this way.

Right, Simon, take it up.

-To the top.

-Whoa!

-Right!

-Yeah!

Perfect!

Still red hot.

-Bit too far.

-That's it.

-Yep.

-That's a good 'un.

After a visit to the workshop, Fred couldn't turn down an invitation

to have a ride on the footplate of one of the locomotives that had been restored there.

-Aye, good afternoon!

-Hello, Fred!

-You all right, then?

-Welcome aboard.

-Can I come on board?

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

While Fred's enjoying himself on the footplate, Alf and Jimmy have got some work to do.

-Waiting for water.

-It's time you were back off your bloody holidays!

-It took a great part in the doing up of it.

-Yes.

-What were the boiler like?

-Well, the main barrel was very good

and the front tube plate was the opposite, it was badly corroded.

When we saw the condition once we got the tube down, it had to be condemned.

Going up Wincobank in Sheffield, bloody wet through, raining. I said "We could've been with Jimmy now,

"on a deck chair with a pint in hand!"

-I'm glad you're back. I've been bloody calling you every day. Have your ears not been burning?

-No.

The running gear underneath, was that in fair order?

-Yeah, it's all plate bearings.

-Yeah.

-White metal.

-Yeah.

How many years did it take you?

Well, it came out of Barry's scrap yard in, er, December 1980

and it first ran under its own power this time last year, so 23 years.

-Did you go to the Rockies?

-We went to Rockies...

-Calgary, Montreal, Toronto.

-See any Eskimos?

-No, saw two Indians though.

-Indians? Not ones with bow and arrows!

-They're not shooting at you!

It was built in Swindon, 1959, October.

-Spent all its working life in South Wales around Cardiff.

-Yeah, yeah.

Then was withdrawn in August 1965. So she wasn't even six years old.

Just run it till it pours.

Guard's coupling up.

Now it's Fred's turn to drive the engine...

..something he always dreamt about as a lad.

I've only got three notches on mine!

-Did you ever find that...you were looking for?

-No, we've not found it yet, but we've been close to it.

Yeah, nearly there.

And he has got no worries about who is doing the steering.

-I'm enjoying this!

-Yeah, I bet you are!

Now, the technical bit's stopping in the right place!

Just slow it down a bit more, about 12 on the gauge.

-I'm more used to big handles, you know.

-Yeah.

Lovely jubbly. I think we'll, er, make something of him yet!

I've seen him do it before though, so...

Did you like that?!

I enjoyed that, thank you very much.

Oh, aye, yeah! He let me drive it, you know, yeah.

Right, Alf, that's it.

Not far from the Midland Railway, there's another engine building business that Fred is going to see.

The owners are old friends of Fred's family

so he's being joined by his sons Jack and Roger, and they're all going to stay there for a few days.

We need all this steam to get up the mountain to see two old mates of mine, Ian and Gary Howard,

who own a big Fowler Showmans engine. Last year they had a very big fire

and it burnt the shed down and melted all the brass on the engine.

But they tell me it's almost finished again now and we've got Roger and Jack, me two sons,

to help out Alf and Jimmy on our round the world tour.

So we'll set off up the hill, or attempt it.

-Hiya, lads, how you doing?

-Hello, Fred!

-I can see you're doing all right, without a shadow of a doubt.

-Oh, battling on, battling on.

-Do you want me to come up or are you coming down?

-We'll come and have a word.

-Have you had a good run up?

-Eh?

-Have you had a good run up?

-Oh, aye.

I can't believe it, you know, from seeing...what... we've all known about 12 months ago.

It's incredible. You must have worked bloody day and night for that, eh?

Aye, we've done a minute or two.

-Yeah.

-Whether another marriage will survive or not I don't know!

-Ooh, shh! Well, I've tried three times!

You've made a brand-new tender.

-Yeah.

-And it didn't do no harm to the boiler.

-We're hoping not, no.

We've done all the tests necessary, the visual, hydraulics

and we've had her in steam, blowing off at 200, and everything's OK.

I read how you stopped the fire brigade squirting it, which could've been disastrous.

-That's why we had such a big burn.

-That were brilliant thinking that, in such terrible conditions.

-We had to make the decision.

-Yeah, stop...stop squirting!

We cleaned the shed off it that had collapsed on it.

That were the first time we'd seen it.

I saw the pictures. Dreadful.

This is the bloody nightmare corner. Did you see one of these on your travels? Do you know what that was?

-A signalling bell?

-Communications bell.

-For the arse-end, yeah.

Because in them days every trailer had a brakeman.

And each brakeman had a bit of string to his arm

-and then that went just above the driver's head and...

-Ding, ding, ding, put the brakes on.

It took us a long time to get one of them.

-Look at all these bits, look.

-Yeah.

-Me lovely oil cans, look.

-Yeah, that's a shame, innit?

-Intit?

Them are getting harder and harder to find.

First thing, at every steam rally go round...

-Junk stalls.

-Yeah, yeah. You sometimes get a bargain.

Erm, well, that's all you can do, isn't it? Head down and battle on.

-Do you want to look at the workshop...?

-It's no use sitting bloody sulking, is it?

This is our other workshop anyway, Fred.

-We've got quite a bit going on down here.

-Aye, yeah.

This is bound to be interesting to you. It's off a very early Aveling Roller.

I can tell with the corners it's the early style.

1884. It'll be the oldest one in steam.

-Tim's just getting some paint on it to seal it up.

-Get the red lead on.

-Get the footplate riveted in there.

-Yeah.

-This is a Marshall.

-Yeah.

It's got the usual Marshall ailments, hasn't it? Why does Marshalls always crack there?

Avelings crack on the throat plate. When you think about Fowlers, Leeds -

there were more traction engine builders and loco builders in Leeds

-than any other city in the land.

-Yeah.

And now there's nowt left at all, is there? What do we do now?

Shopkeepers. Bolton's famous for toilet rolls and incontinence pads.

And we used to make bloody boilers and all sorts.

Yeah, I've got a book at home, er...

The Manchester Road Rolling Company, Norman E Box.

It's got, "In case of an accident, on no account must you talk to the police.

-"Ring head office immediately!"

-Can't fault 'em.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Here's Eddie drilling the firebox for this here Marshall.

-Yeah.

-It's the Marshall's patent firebox that one.

-I've read about them.

Strip it all down, get the swarf out and then rivet it up.

There's more of the interesting... Our hobby really grows and grows, doesn't it? So...

-The work's endless.

-The future's got to be bright for all of us.

-That's why we're training Eddie up, you see.

-Oh, aye.

-To take over when we're old.

And for a traction engine driver's mate, the work never ends.

It's running a lot better. I mean, it's just tackled this hill coming up to Alton Engineering

and it's come up there no problem and kept making steam.

And while Alf is working, who's that sitting at the back?

I don't know whether Fred's 100% happy with it but he's a bit of a perfectionist, isn't he?

It's never ending this bloody polishing job, is it? Where's these two bloody helpers?

For Roger, there are too many other diversions here.

But Jack is soon back on the scene when there's some driving to do.

There'll be time to do any repairs that are needed now it's just over halfway through the tour.

And that's a fine manoeuvre. His dad will be proud of him.

There's a lot of interesting places to see round here,

so Fred's going to be staying at Ian Howard's for the next few days.

He'll be visiting a place where they make wooden patterns that are used for the castings on traction engines

and the belt-driven workshop of a local clock maker.