This photo shows Bill Hepple who was a foreman and later Supervisor in the Pipe Mill at the Malleable Works. Here he is shown conducting a pressure test on one of the pipes. Courtesy of Bob Irwin. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
My dad did work for Cleveland transit until he had to retire due to ill health. He died in 1993. Thank you Tony for your comment. I am not sure about Mick being at Roseworth. I believe he lived in Stockton as a child and lived in Thornaby after he married my aunt in the 1950s. I will ask my aunt when I speak to her next.
I knew your father well, Lesley – he worked on transit when I was there, he was a good man. Also I think your uncle, Mick Ingrim, was at the same school as me – Frederick Nattrass. He got moved to Roseworth when we were in the juniors, if you can please let me know if it is the same Mick. There use to be a few of us knock about – Alex Livingstone, Cliffy Caswell, happy days. I also worked at the Malleable.
My father, Jim Heselwood was a welding inspector in 1957 at the Malleable. My uncle, Mick Ingram also worked here until he was made redundant when the works closed down.
I recall welding superseded brazing, it was a big step forward in engineering the sound of the riveter’s in ship building disappeared and a new era came about with the Welder. In mechanical dentistry in 1956 I used a Hurst electronic welder with turret head, this was on much smaller scale to the ones referred to here. It was a mechanical method of fixation used to retain the acrylic sections of dentures for the gum and teeth sections of the denture.
Orthodontics also used stainless steel wire for banding teeth and arch wires to move childrens teeth they used this preferred method. Previously a mouth blowtorch using silver solder was used until miniature gas air guns came onto the market. The Hurst was fantastic welder anything from the size of a fuse wire to 28 swg plate could be joined without burning the weld which made an inferior joint and would break under load.
Regarding pressure testing, My Uncle Alf Kidd was redirected from his business in Thornaby by the Ministry of Labour during the war, when I worked for Fred Kidd’s Alf did all the pressure testing on hose couplings for the Fire Service and the Armed Forces which required leak-proof joints and couplings. It was hard and repetitious work but it had to be done correctly. I much enjoy reading and looking at Picture Stockton. We do not hear much about life today, Come on you ‘young uns’ with all these modern aids and gagets.
The Dutch company was ‘Grotnes’, now ‘Fontijne-Grotnes’ from Rotterdam.
The pipe expander & tack welding machines which were installed in the 42″ Mill at Hartlepool by Head Wrightsons was a joint venture with a Dutch company, whose engineer was resident at Teasdale Works Fitting Shop while we were building them.
The mechanical expander at Hartlepool that Anon mentions is still in the 42″ Mill, but very rarely used. The 36 head tack welder is long gone. The tack welders (2) that are in use now have only one head, but provide a continuous weld along the full length of the pipe. The expander in use at present is similar in design to the previous one, but more powerful and quicker, it can expand pipes up to 50mm wall thickness. Harry Kraus was Safety Officer at the Malleable, I don’t think he was ever Mill Manager.
I remember Bill Hepple when I was a welder at the Malleable, he was a foreman then & was made up to supervisor when George Pinkney was promoted to manager. This would have been in the late sixties after we returned from Australia.
The pipe expander machine we built in the Head Wrightson’s fitting shop in the seventies & installed & commissioned at B.S.C. Hartlepool would have succeeded this method of ensuring the pipe was round, we also installed an automatic tack welding machine which had 36 welding heads & 9 heads would work at a time to weld the pipe. Harry Kraus was the manager of the Malleable’s pipe mill.
Bill Hepple was my father-in law.
One of many Hepple’s at the malleable. Fun to see people scatter if a weld failed under pressure.
This is a view of the ram end of the ‘Loevy’ Expander in the 42″ Mill at the Malleable,
Stockton. The half round dies below the pipe are on both sides of the pipe and are pivotted at the bottom. During the test the dies are clamped up around the pipe for its full length. The ends of the pipe are plugged and the pipe filled with water, the pressure increasing until the pipe is ‘blown up’ into the dies to give it its round shape. The photo shows the pipe after the pressure is released the dies dropped and the ends unplugged. Before the ends are unplugged the pipe is impact tested by a series hammers pivotted above the pipe and allowed to fall and hit the pipe.
The machine is set at a slight angle to allow the water to drain out. This machine was in operation from about 1954 until the mill closed in about 1968/9.