Sanderson Brothers & Newboult Ltd

As a 19 year old apprentice wood machinist back in the year 1956 I had the pleasure of visiting the above companies Sheffield works on a private visit, the memories of that visit remain with me to this day. As an apprentice I was being taught the art of running a 54" Robinson re-saw so my initial interest at that time was primarily Circular Saws and I remember very well seeing two circular saw each 13 feet diameter in their course of manufacture both saws destined for China (so I was informed).
Another part of my apprenticeship included the sharpening and maintenance of both circular and hand saws, therefore the handsaw section of this company was of great interest to me.
My days of interest in large circular re-saws have long since past; the wide band saw having largely replaced them, but my interest in handsaws has grown with the years. The hand saw maintenance skills I was taught as an apprentice have been of value throughout my life. I have topped, sharpened and set many handsaws both for myself and a large number of people I have worked with over the years, and this interest in handsaws I believe was spawned by this visit to these works and the skills observed in that section of the works.
I have an old booklet published by this company that is called "HANDSAWS", the last two pages of this publication is a series of seven photographs showing manufacturing processes at the company. If these photos can be downloaded to backsaw.net without infringing copyright then I would do so, what do you think? I have searched through the booklet and can not find any indication that the publication has any copyright protection.
The rest of the booklet is all about choice of saw and saw maintenance with a number of illustrations of the various processes.
regards

 

For anonymous works such as this, works published before 1956 are out of copyright.

 

Sanderson Brothers

Fascinating to hear such a vivid piece of oral history!
Am away from home and databases etc, so can only say that
Robinson was the major (I think) maker of industrial sawing machinery in Britain until it went under (?1970's) - huge stuff installed on docks etc for handling imported timber. There is a catalogue of theirs in the Hawley Tool Collection in Sheffield.
SBN have also gone under (of course) - after 400 years of steel and steel products making, but their Pax brand handsaws are still made by Thomas Flinn, the name having passed through other companies, including Garlick.

PS Robinson were based somewhere in Lancashire England, but could well have been big enough to have an Australian branch/subsidiary.

 

robinsons

Hi everybody, to continue this discussion about Robinson's; there main factory was at Rochdale. As an apprentice I was taken on a visit to their works by the college I was attending, this would have been in the 1950's. They built very heavy wood working machinery of many types ranging from Circular Saws, Band saws, Planing machines, Four sided planing and moulding machines, Sanding machines etcetera. One process Robinson's carried out that was unusual to other manufacturers, they had there own blast furnace and manufactured their own castings. The day of our visit they were actually tapping the furnace and pouring molten iron into the moulds and I stood watching this process. They were truly one of the great wood working machinery manufacturers, a sad loss they are no longer in production. The companies name was Thomas Robinson of Rochdale and were founded 1847. They did have an Australian company, the history for this company can be found on
http://www.atma.asn.au/default.asp?contentID=588
regards

 

pictures download

Hi everyone as promised I have downloaded the pictures from the Sanderson Brothers and Newbould booklet. I hope it is successful, I am not sure how I can upload them so they can be enlarged.
The images are from top left working clockwise around the picture; 1 - High grade steel is made in the electric furnace. 2 - Punching the teeth in a pit saw blank. 3 - File sharpening hand saw teeth. 4 - Tensioning a large band-saw. 5 - Tensioning a circular saw. 6 - Shearing or paring the blanks.This shop deals with cross cuts and pit saws. 7 - Rolling the sheet; this is the last picture and is under the small block containing text which reads:
These photographs show some of the processes. In addition to the hand operated saws described in this book. Sanderson's make all types of saws including band and circular saws up to the largest sizes.
As I mentioned in my earlier post I visited these works in the 1950's, I purchased on that visit a set of saw tensioning hammers Dog heads and cross faces along with a gauge. These I learned to use during my apprenticeship where I was taught the skill of circular saw maintenance including gulleting on a hand gulleting machine, filing by hand to sharpen and setting by hand to a feeler (click) gauge. Happy days!