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wadkin workshop flooring

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wadkin workshop flooring

Postby wallace » 30 May 2021, 15:18

About 6 years ago I heard that the wadkin factory was getting demolished, so I found out who was doing the demolition and contacted them. I asked if I could have some of the flooring which they said no problem come and take as much as you like.
I hired a van a drove 4hrs to leicester, they had a little bobcat loader which would of crushed the tail lift of the hire van, so they dumped a load at the back and I handballed them.

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I had a little walk around but couldnt go far because they were pulling it down with big nibblers

This was the original pattern shop from 1922, which later became the classroom.

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And in its heyday

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I sawed the blocks in half to make them go further, and stacked them in my shed. Thats where they sat for 6 years. A couple of months ago I finally got around to laying them.
I thought the easiest way would be to do it like in 1922 on hot bitumen.

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I was making this up as I went along, the first thing I learnt was dont put your tar boil at the doorway of your shed. It fills up with the smoke. You also have to be careful how much heat you put into it. Too much and you will get horrible acrid smoke. It also takes a while to melt 4Okgs of bitumen.

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My shed floor is concrete and all over the place.

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One of the hardest parts was moving everything to one side

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I have an extension to my shed which has a wooden floor on raised plinths, I never intended for this area to have machines, so when I stuck about 3 tonne of old iron at the end it sank a good 6". This was a nightmare to raise back up.
The flooring is 22mm chipboard loft boards and it was a doddle to lay the block flooring on. I just dipped the block in the tar and quickly set in place, You dont have much time before it grabs.

Because the concrete floor was all over the place the blocks in turn were all over place. Some blocks stood proud half an inch or more to its neighbour. I tried the floor sander but it just kept shredding the sanding sheets. In hindsight I should have put a self leveller down first.
I got my little electric planer and went at it. The poor thing lasted 3hrs before it died. It did some sterling work considering it was planing end grain with lashings of old bitumen inside.

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I tried to buy a cheapo one but eveywhere was sold out due to covid. They had a makita for £12O but I wasnt paying that to trash it. I finally found a bosch that had been returned to the trade department at B&Q for some reason. I got it cheap and it worked really well.

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I hired a sander for a week to give me plenty of time to sand and move stuff. I think it was £5O a day or a £1OO for a week. They get you on the sanding sheets though at £3 each. I didn't know you could get 24grit. Also dont try and skimp on dust bags, you can only use them a couple of times.

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I have yet to put a finish on, I'm not sure what to use. I think it might be boiled linseed. One thing I noticed straight away was it feels so nice underfoot and moving machines with the pump truck is so much easier.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Malc2098 » 30 May 2021, 15:26

Bloomin' well done!
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Andyp » 30 May 2021, 16:26

Excellent recycling, using them as they were intended too.

Do you know what wood it is?
I do not think therefore I do not am.

cheers
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Mike G » 30 May 2021, 17:01

That looks absolutely beautiful. I'm sure it will be much closer to level than your old one was.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby wallace » 30 May 2021, 17:13

Andyp wrote:Excellent recycling, using them as they were intended too.

Do you know what wood it is?


Its pitch pine, weirdly every block has heart wood. So I presume it was a way of utilising every bit of branch wood. This stuff was laid 99 years ago.
Heres a pic of it being laid. When wadkin first built the green lane factory it was too big and they had to space out machines to make the place seem full to prospective customers. It wasnt long before they had to expand and did regularly up to the 6O's

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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby AndyT » 30 May 2021, 17:23

Brilliant! A practical floor of impeccable provenance. Good for another century at least.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby novocaine » 30 May 2021, 17:24

Simply stunning. Id have that in the house never mind the workshop.
Carbon fibre is just corduroy for cars.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby DaveL » 30 May 2021, 19:33

Well done, it's in the right place and looks great. Any tool dropped on it should be well protected.
Regards,
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby NickM » 30 May 2021, 19:53

Great job. Lovely to have a bit of history under your feet.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Lons » 30 May 2021, 20:29

I absolutely love that and the history and sentiment that goes with it, well worth the effort. :eusa-clap:

Many years ago I recovered a quantity of oak parquet blocks from an old house in Newcastle and eventually laid some in bitumen like yours, they were only 30mm thick and luckily I had experiance with bitumen boilers having done a number of flat roofs. My wife wasn't at all happy with the smell however that seemed to hang around for weeks. :eusa-doh:
I have a degree in faffing about (It must be true, my wife says so)
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Chris101 » 30 May 2021, 21:16

Stunning Wallace. Just the nuts.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Trevanion » 30 May 2021, 21:31

Super cool! Much better than being burned or put in the ground as what would've happened if you hadn't come along.

It's a shame how Wadkin and a massive chunk of heritage went down the pan, I wonder whether if the higher-ups were just creaming too much off the top of it, or was it doomed like most of Britain's manufacturing sector back then anyway.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Cabinetman » 30 May 2021, 23:59

Really impressive!
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby clogs » 31 May 2021, 07:28

So true Trevanion.....
even new companies have the management screwing everybody.....
I worked for a Danish private company...almost global..turn over was in the hundreds of millions.....
the old man died and the kids took over...withing ten years it went into liquidation...
the kids had spent all the assets......

I also think of Triumph Bsa and Norton, again and again......

A famous German General (WW1) said the British fight like Lions but led by DONKEY'S......
How true the donkey bit......
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby wallace » 31 May 2021, 09:26

novocaine wrote:Simply stunning. Id have that in the house never mind the workshop.

When I first cut the blocks the smell was so strong from the old bitumen. It took a couple of years for it to stop clinging to your clothes.
After sanding its much worse and because the blocks are all layed out and not stacked up its quite horrible. If you just walk in for 1O secs your clothes smell. Needless to say I have to bag my work shop clothes as soon as I come in. I had to chuck a few old clothes when I was sanding because my wife wouldnt allow them in the washer.

Trevanion wrote:Super cool! Much better than being burned or put in the ground as what would've happened if you hadn't come along.

It's a shame how Wadkin and a massive chunk of heritage went down the pan, I wonder whether if the higher-ups were just creaming too much off the top of it, or was it doomed like most of Britain's manufacturing sector back then anyway.


I think the writing was on the cards when they thought it was a good idea for the directors to have a private plane. I've seen some of the expenditure near the end and the amount of money spent on cars for share holders was unreal.
It really went downhill when it was purchased by Robinson and they started messing around. I heard a story of the guys at houghton le spring who made a specific line of machines and had it down to a T, and were very efficient, after the takeover, someone had the bright idea to bring production to green lane, alot of the employees even moved homes. It was a total failure.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby AJB Temple » 01 Jun 2021, 13:02

Top job on the floor. Really excellent.

It's sad that these old shops making top quality machines like Wadkin?died out. Maybe we will see a resurgence in British manufacturing now. My family come from near Coventry industrial area as was (the ones who were not farming anyway), and my dad was an engineer making the Coventry Climax racing engines for Lotus cars, and then was moved to Jaguar working on V12 and V8 engine development (my memory is hazy) and he said even then that engineering skills were on the wane. Coventry was an industrial powerhouse at one time, but much of that is just a memory now.
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Re: wadkin workshop flooring

Postby Phil Pascoe » 01 Jun 2021, 15:14

It's all over the Country. A few miles from me was Holman's, who made mining machinery - they closed a couple of decades ago. At one time they probably took half the area's male school leavers as apprentices.
I spoke to a chap (by pure chance) one day who had been working there when they finally closed. He had been working clearing out workshops and stores, some of which hadn't been touched for years. He said they came across the longest micrometer they'd ever seen - it measured one hundred and eight inches. One hundred and eight inches was the diameter of the largest pistons they'd ever produced. :shock:
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