Tag: bolts and nuts

BSW Fasteners for Heritage Rail – Great Western’s 4079 restoration

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Thomas Smith Fasteners supply many private & heritage railways throughout the UK.

We recently supplied the Great Western Society at Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire, with BSW (Whitworth) bolts and nuts for a fantastic project to restore a member of the iconic Castle Class 4-6-0, the 4079 ‘Pendennis Castle’.

No.4079 ‘Pendennis Castle’ was the seventh of 171 Castles built and was completed at Swindon in February 1924.

4079 heritage rail fasteners

 

After a long and distinguished service in which she outperformed many larger competitors, ‘Pendennis Castle’ was withdrawn in 1964, and sold for preservation. In 1977 the locomotive was sold to Hamersley Iron in Western Australia for use on excursion trains on the company’s ore-carrying railway.

In Australia, she was looked after by the Pilbara Railways Historical Society and worked many excursion trains, with her final steaming in Australia taking place in October 1994.

With an operational future in Australia looking uncertain, in early 2000 the Great Western Society agreed to arrange and pay for the repatriation of ‘Pendennis Castle’ and to restore her to full operational condition.

The Great Western Society have very kindly provided us with this photographs of the rebuild featuring our bolts, nuts and fasteners.

Here is a front view of the locomotive, the boiler & smokebox have yet to be fitted.

4079 great western front fasteners heritage rail bolts

Below is a buffer assembly attached to the buffer beam.

buffer assembly bolts fasteners heritage rail

The below photo shows where the smokebox is attached to the saddle.

bolts smokebox saddle rail

Great Western also use our fasteners for bolting pipe flanges together and general engineering purposes.

For more information on this iconic restoration, visit Didcot Railway Centre’s 4079 page. Many thanks to the Society for providing us with these photographs and information.

Thomas Smith Fasteners supply a wide range of standard and special imperial fasteners in BSW, BSF, UNC and UNF threadforms, along with a full range of metric. Contact sales on 01942 520260 or email at sales@thomassmithfasteners.com.

Thomas Smith Fasteners in Glasgow – Celebrating 25 Years

Stephen about us, fastener industry, fasteners

Celebrating 25 Years – Thomas Smith  Fasteners started with a small office & warehouse situated within Lanarkshire Bolt Ltd in Bertram Street, Burnbank.

Since the unfortunate  closure of Lanarkshire Bolt in 2002 the business re-located to 14 Forrest Street in Blantyre.

At the helm is Caroline MacLachlan, who has been involved since the start and is assisted by Sheila Park who has been with the business for nearly 23 years.

The Warehouse and Sales Counter have been supervised by Jamie Nicol for 18 years.    Accumulatively  there is a wealth of experience within the depot.

Over the years, the Business has grown from stocking a basic range of Bolts & Nuts to a complete range of Fixings & Fasteners in Stainless Steel and 10.9 High Tensile.

Focus on Customer requirements has increased the range to include Drills, Hacksaw Blades, Jubilee Clips & Abrasive Discs along with various Kits containing an  assortment of Screws etc.

With the support of our loyal customers we give thanks and look forward to many more years of service to the Industry.

 

Fasteners for Motor Racing – Tom White at Oulton Park in 1977 Crossle FF

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tom white 1977 crossle formula ford fasteners

Last year, we posted this blog entry about supplying the fasteners for a fantastic 1977 Crossle 33F Formula Ford 2 Litre racing car, to be driven by Tom White, then aged 16. We supplied many different fasteners for this car, from socket screws to hexagon bolts, nuts and washers, and thought we’d update on Tom’s progress!

A year on, Tom is now 17 and recently completed a hillclimb in the car. He has now also completed his first track race at the Oulton Park Gold Cup. The picture at the top of the article shows race day.

Tom posted the fastest time in the wet practice session, which is pictured below. A great achievement, especially as it was his first time driving around Oulton Park!

oulton park formula ford bolts and nuts

Tom will be racing again at Brands Hatch at the end of September. Next year, he is hoping to complete a full racing season.

crossle formula ford engine fasteners

All of us at Thomas Smith Fasteners would like to wish Tom the best of luck in his future racing endeavours!

Imperial nuts and bolts are extensively used in classic vehicles like this one, and we hold the UK’s largest stocks. We offer a wide range of fasteners with metric and imperial threadforms (BSF, BSW, UNC, UNF). If you’d like to know more about what we can offer, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01942 520260.

 

Onsite special fastener manufacture – M12 x 500 Hexagon Bolts

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m12 bolt long special manufacture

These long, M12 x 500 hexagon bolts were manufactured in our onsite workshop and are a good example of our non-standard manufacturing capabilities.

Alongside our huge range of standard nuts, bolts and screws, we hold large stocks of semi-finished bolt blanks which enable us to rapidly manufacture to your exact dimensional requirements.  We can also modify existing fasteners and are also able to manufacture fasteners from scratch as we have forging and CNC machining capabilities.

So whether you need standard fasteners, to modify existing fasteners or scratch manufacture, we have the solution to fit your requirements.

For more information, contact our experienced technical sales staff and we’ll be happy to discuss your requirements.

Classic Cars at Tatton Park

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This growing event was held in June.

Hundreds of classic cars were on show, many being displayed in motor club groups.

We spoke to a number of club officials about our large range of stocked imperial bolts and nuts.  They were all very interested as our range of BSF, BSW, UNC and UNF threadforms are readily available from stock – we manufacture through our sister company Smith Bullough – and BSF and BSW in particular are becoming harder to find.