Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:14

PMT Industries celebrates 50 years of production at its Bolton site Featured

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50-yearsPMT Industries has celebrated 50 years of production of Yankee Dryers at its Bolton site.
The site opened in February 1961 and the official opening was performed by Sir Keith Joseph Bt. M.P. Minister of State, Board of Trade, on 1 December 1961.

Dryers have been produced by associated companies since 1860.

In 1961 when the Bolton site opened four foundries from Bury & Wigan - Walmseys (Bury) Ltd, Walmsleys (Wigan) Ltd, Bentley & Jackson Ltd and Ashworth & Parker Ltd were consolidated on the one site.

The site has had various names including Walmsleys (Bury) Ltd, Beloit Walmsley, Beloit Bolton, and Sandusky Walmsley Limited.

In October 2006 the site closed and 3 months later the Foundry and Yankee Dryer Machining & Assembly facilities were re-opened by PMT Industries.

Retaining the skills and experience of many of the former employees of the previous company, and having purchased the intellectual property rights to all Yankee Dryers produced by the previous site occupants, a new era began in January 2007.

PMT Industries Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of PMT Italia SpA, which is part of the Nugo Group. The group has two main divisions, power generation and paper machinery; PMT Industries being part of the paper machinery division.

As one of only a few foundries in the world with deep pits, the company has the capability to produce very large cast iron components, not only for the paper industry but also for other industries.

It is recognised for its excellence in quality castings.

PMT Yankee, MG and Paper Dryers continue to be designed and manufactured at the 14,000 m factory where state of the art computerised design, engineering, foundry and machining resources combine with traditional skills and craftsmanship in a unique single location.

Around 330 Yankee and MG dryers have been designed and manufactured since 1961 and many hundreds of paper dryers, continually developing the designs and production techniques and building up a vast experience and know-how in this specialised area of papermaking technology.

The castings produced are up to 150 tonnes in weight and some unusual moulding techniques are necessary in order to produce the very large castings.

The foundry has one of the largest melting capacity medium frequency electric furnace installations in Europe. The twin 9 MW inverter powered and computer controlled furnaces melt 38 Tonnes of iron per hour, with each 12 Tonnes charge being melted to 1450° C in just 38 minutes.

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