I Learned How To Drop-Forge Titanium.

Alec, Jamie, thank you for visiting us and giving us the opportunity to showcase our drop forging capability. Please keep doing what you're doing because it not only educates but inspires the next generation to get involved in our industry. ❤

Passion ! Passion everywhere 🤩

Would love to see more of this type of British industry Alec. I know your own work is epic, but to see major industrial companies in Britain such as this would be awesome.

What people don’t realise is the machines are normal sized, it’s just Alec that’s shrunk.

Glad you enjoyed your day Alec , I normally work the furnace and clear space on the Banning 4000 on the day you came I was bar stamping on the 1.1 MASSY , my Dad worked here in the 70s in the tool room . I have been in drop forging almost 40 years and still learn something new from time to time . I have watched a few of your videos over the past 3 years or so , If I had known it was you I would have come over to say hello . I have the apron you wore pity you didn't sign it lol.

For those who don't see the metal 'getting hotter'. Cameras work differently than our eyes. The metal itself stays (roughly) the same orange color, but look at the surroundings. The background gets darker and darker as the camera adjusts for how bright the main target is. That's how you can get an idea of just how much hotter that thing got.

I remember asking for it when you first announced that you would be doing this 'industry tour' series, but it would be amazing to see you tour the John Taylor's Bell Foundry in Loughborough. Making musical instruments from hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of steel would probably be a great thing to show off to your viewers!

I'm super impressed with your audio. You always have great audio, but it must have been really tough in that facility. Very well done.

What's crazy is that all of those massive dies are usually fancy tool steels, like A2. A big 'ol block of tool steel is $$$ plus the time and care to machine a high grade alloy like that. Just insane seeing all those stacked up

Wow this one is weird to me. Alec got me into blacksmithing 10 years ago. I quit school to become a blacksmith back then. The only way possible for me to learn it was an apprenticeship at one of the biggest drop forging companies in the world, working with a 35.000 t spindlepress for example. Today I work in a smaller workshop, making art. This dude sent me on the wildest journey of my life, and yet he doesen't know. Strange to see him at a place like the one my journey began at.

That's one of the things I love about Great Britain and the rest of Europe is how much history they have. It's crazy to think that this place has been around for so long in the same location with multiple generations working at perfecting their craft. Absolutely incredible, I wish we had this sort of stuff over in Canada

Love the showcasing of UK based engineering, we are constantly being reminded in the media of outsourced (often Chinese) manufacturing, so it’s an absolute pleasure to see passionate British heavy engineering still thriving

It's fabulous to see a British Industry still going strong. I honestly thought we'd lost this type of work to overseas competitors. A huge thank you to WH Tildesley Ltd for allowing their superb complex to be filmed.

One thing I always enjoy when it comes to machinist, they are the ones NOT afraid of adapting to new technologies. CNC being a thing? Install it, it's amazing! 3D printing? Can we afford it? Then yes, buy it and make things. They move alongside new development, which sort of fits as they are the ones making the new technology sometimes. While there is the "This machine is 78 years old and it works like new" mentality, they aren't afraid of going "But you know what would make it better? Turning it into a CNC machine"

This is by far one of the most interesting videos you’ve done that involves people outside of your shop

I’ve been following you a very long time Alec and I can say for certain that I have never seen you happier than you are in this video. Thanks for sharing your experience. It made me smile too.

Thanks for this, Alec. Hearing the midlands accent. Looking at all that equipment, and hearing about multi-generational workers there. Made me a bit emotional. I can imagine my dad in places like that, back in the days just after WWII. No computers, of course. But these were, as it were, his people. Thanks again.

Always enjoy these industrial shop visits. Alec does a great job of presenting and Jamie's camera work is solid as always.

Man I love these videos, so cool to see real manufacturing explained by real people - not from huge corporations or filtered through nine layers of marketing and PR approval but people who genuinely seem to have a passion for this kind of thing

I work in a drop dye forge! Moline forge Illinois, we’ve made parts for both world wars and John Deere tractor, we made ALOT of forged part for tanks and artillery guns. The United States largest amoury is in rock island a town over. The area is locally known as the quad cities It’s cool seeing how people do the same job, you can tell where someone went a totally different way on certain areas but it’s exactly the same in others, like the machine shop for the dyes and him using vice grips for changing designating part codes are the thing that came to mind first But here in our shop all our hammer are above 5 tons and the biggest is 10. They more 10 feet in the ground on giant springs so the don’t tear the building apart. Our oldest hammers are buried and set on rail road the and gravel and you can hear those for a mile or over if you know what you are listening for. Also seeing them use stock bars cut to shorter lengths as they go is genius. We have stud welders that weld every stud. Though we don’t do too many small parts that we could use that technique. Those furnaces are nice as well. We use big fuel oil furnaces and sliding doors with just air blow up so you don’t get a face full of fire