What a day.   The first chilled iron tram wheels for possibly a hundred years were cast in Huddersfield today.  Bernard Donald and I were privileged to be able to watch the process of mould making and casting from start to finish.   The wheels were cast at H Downs and sons Ltd in Huddersfield.  This is a long established family firm that specialises in one off and short run castings.  

The castings are all serially numbered for tracing purposes and are labelled "MILLERS PATENT, HUDDERSFIELD, 2009."  Today the two wheels that are going to be fixed on the axles were cast and the two that will be free to rotate (To provide a primitive form of differential) are due to be cast on Friday. 

  

On the left Bernard is holding a 'chill' that will be placed in the mould to form the hard wearing tread. On the right the moulder is starting to pour the sand over the back of the pattern to form the lower half of the mould.

  

Here the lower half of the mould can be seen with the 6 chills around the circumfernce. On the right the iron for our wheels is being tapped from the cupola furnace into a ladle. 

The iron was then poured into the completed mould until it was full.  It will be left overnight to cool before being turned out of the mould.

Meanwhile back at the tram Jim spent the day drying out the pannelling on C side with a hair dryer before applying the first coat of primer.  Stepehn carried on applying triangular fillets to the pannelling inside.   All in all a good day.