Page 30 - High Duty Alloys

Redditch Heritage High Duty Alloys

Post War Development

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VE Day – Victory in Europe Day on May 8 1945 – saw a big party in the works canteen
but the war's end brought a falling off of work
levels and consequent staff reductions – again
there was a film of the VE Day celebrations in
the HDA archives. In 1945 the High Duty
workforce across all three sites totalled 13,000,
but an order value that dropped from £28m to
£3m pounds brought a reduction to 6,000 and
it was to be a few years before civil aircraft work
began to fill in the gaps. However the
development of the jet engine ensured that the
RAF had to re-equip with modern aircraft and
that helped to keep orders flowing in.

Although we have reached the end of the war,
those first six years form only a small part in the
history and success of High Duty Alloys. I would
just like to spend a few minutes discussing the
highlights in the years that followed.

The advances in aviation pushed the need for
ever bigger forgings and the HDA board
eventually took the decision after several years
of independent study, and with no financial
support from the Government, to install a
12,000 ton hydraulic press. The columns and
cylinders were ordered in April and June 1951.

A compressor blade for RB.199 Tornado
– 1980s. This is in titanium but
aluminium and steel similar.

The Erie Hammer Goes

The success of the Erie hammer was short lived as its power began destroying its own
foundations and it was transferred to HDA’s Dissington factory in Cumbria. It was replaced
by a 12,000ton Press.

The press’ overall height was 56ft 4ins of which 42ft 9ins was above ground, and the total
weight reached 800 tons. The remainder was concealed in an underground chamber from
where 2,500 tons of soil had been excavated, the foundations using 500 tons of concrete
poured down in one continuous stream for 67 hours.

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