Work to complete plant 1 extension has gathered pace over the first quarter of 2015. Since the return to work in the New year Gestamp Tallent has seen the installation of a new 35ton overhead crane, the Fagor 4000T transfer press and Arisa 1500T progression press complete with a short form coil line. Both presses are now in their final commissioning stages.
Work commenced on the Fagor Press as soon as staff arrived back at work after the Christmas break with the installation of the scrap conveyor in the pit. This needed to be installed before the press arrived and went ahead with no problems.
The Fagor engineers arrived on site shortly after and started with the press install. The first items they installed were the pads in the pit that the press sits on. Then the various press items arrived on 15 wagons over a period of 3 days which logistically caused the team a few problems as storage space was at a premium as Howard Russell were still on site finishing off the building construction.
The decision was taken to store some items off site until they were required. The main body of the press (beds, crowns and slides) arrived at Teesport on January 27th. Gestamp personnel were lucky enough to see the various items been taken off the ship and put onto special transport to be delivered to site. The heaviest items weighing 90 tonnes!
The press then started to be built from the floor up in various stages using a mega-lift until the crowns were placed on the top. This took approximately 3 weeks which was very impressive. The destack feeder and all of the auxiliary items were then installed around the press. Commissioning of the press started mid-March and is still continuing.
So far the press has passed all of its dimensional and run checks and the destack feeder is just finishing its commissioning phase. Commissioning of the transfer system has just started which is expected to take 2-4 weeks. After that tools will be introduced to the press and training for operator and maintenance will begin.
With the press currently being on plan the company expect the press to begin production at the end of May. Once in production this will be the largest capacity transfer press within the plant. From the initial designs, the specification was based on the Komatsu (K1) press so parts to be manufactured can now be run in both presses.
After the scrap conveyor was installed for the Fagor press work commenced on the installation of the Arisa conveyor which went ahead with no problems. In January a team from Gestamp press shop attended the pre-acceptance buy off at Arisa’s premises in Spain.
Shortly after this the press was decommissioned and shipped to Aycliffe. This time the parts arrived via 11 wagons. Three special transport wagons brought the bed crown and slide from Southampton where the ship docked.
The first parts arrived at the beginning of March. and the main components of the press were assembled in just over a week then the soundproof cabinet was assembled. Meanwhile the Cisam coil line arrived on site and was installed by the Arisa team. Operator & Maintenance training is expected to be completed by the end of April.
