WEIRBULLETIN | JULY 2012 AND FINALLY … 14 years without an accident


The Weir Minerals Andean team has recently completed 14 years without an accident at Minera Doña Ines de Collahuasi, Chile. This mining company operates at altitudes higher than 4,000 metres above sea level, making the


Staff, with the outstanding safety record, from the Iquique Service Centre in front of an agglomerator


environmental working conditions extremely difficult. Our team has achieved their outstanding safety record thanks largely to the activities of the Safestart program, coupled with active, visible leadership on site.


90 year old valve still going strong


Usually, the Weir Isolation Valves business in Elland, UK manufacture cutting edge products for the power industry. But the team showed they can also turn their hands to valves from a different era, when they helped in the refurbishment of a steam engine valve from 1920. The valve belonged to a 300 horse power tandem compound steam engine, used in a cloth manufacturers, replacing an earlier beam engine at the mill. The engine went on to extend the life of the mill for another 77 years.


In 2003, the mill premises


were sold and the previous owner was keen for the engine to be preserved. The engine was moved to Bancroft Mill in


Barnoldswick, Lancashire, UK and a plan formed to re-erect the engine with the hope of eventually running it on steam. The Isolation Valves UK’s aftermarket business at Elland was approached by a heritage group who needed to refurbish the main steam valve on the engine, identified as a Hopkinsons “Triad” type from around 1920. The aftermarket department located a drawing and supplied sufficient information for the valve to be refurbished to working order. John Reid of the Bancroft Mill


Engine Trust, thanked Weir for locating the drawing and said, “It was by no means easy to disassemble the inner workings of the valve stem as it was seized solid after around 30 years of lying idle. However, using the drawing supplied by Weir, it was possible to separate the three


Above: The re-instated valve on the refurbished engine. Left: The Hopkinsons valve as removed from the engine after 90 years.


main components and to gradually free everything off a stage at a time. The valve faces have been lapped using the method Weir suggested and the whole unit was shown to our boiler inspector who came to test the boiler we currently use. He was suitably impressed with the finished valve.”


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