{"id":321,"date":"2009-10-12T18:45:45","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T18:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/?p=321"},"modified":"2013-11-19T23:10:40","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T23:10:40","slug":"ici-nobel-explosives-part-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/explosives\/ici-nobel-explosives-part-v\/","title":{"rendered":"ICI Nobel Explosives Part V"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking when the hell am I going to STFU about Ardeer? Soon, I promise \ud83d\ude09 This was a revisit to walk the last few unexplored paths, go into every building I’ve missed, and hunt down a few loose ends – plus get better pictures of some places for my book project. There were a few bonuses, though…<\/p>\n

First up, one of the four gunpowder presses – GP4 is a “Yankee” horizontal hydraulic press, which was apparently preferred by the workers.<\/p>\n

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GP1-3 are vertical hydraulic presses.<\/p>\n

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GP1 still has the controls, dials etc – it’s in the best condition.<\/p>\n

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I found a wee book of photos (see later) – and one was of a vertical press in use, around 1935.<\/p>\n

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Next, onto the detonator test building.<\/p>\n

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A drop test machine – still works…<\/p>\n

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Next onto the labs – I just really stopped here for lunch, but decided on another wee poke about and found a big stash of paperwork – first some time-lapse photos:<\/p>\n

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Then lots and lots of plans – including the beautiful ballistic mortar, and some plans of the labs. They mostly date from 1912-13.<\/p>\n

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One of the lab plans had a handwritten note on the back: “I have viewed this drawing several times – it is a good one – they were artists in 1912. The drawing helps to tell the history of the Testing Station, because I expect the buildings will be altered in the near future and then no other drawing and no person will be able to recall what is inscribed herein. JH 18\/1\/54”
\nThe plans are different to the current layout of the labs, so whoever wrote this was right.<\/p>\n

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I also found a wee booklet – for the 60th Anniversary Dinner for the Foreman’s Association. There were a bunch more interesting pictures in there – not at brilliant resolution, but some I’ve not seen anywhere else. The press one above came from this booklet – here are some others, first the factory gate in 1949:<\/p>\n

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The original nitroglycerine hill and dynamite cartridging huts – probably about 1890.<\/p>\n

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The nitrocellulose department in WWI:<\/p>\n

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Also in the drawer was a big plastic hand – no idea why…<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere, a much better shot of the rotating-mirror camera:<\/p>\n

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A couple of ballistic mortar projectiles, with a slide rule for calculating explosive power:<\/p>\n

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Finally, the silica gel drying stoves:<\/p>\n

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And a storage magazine:<\/p>\n

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Go to the next installment…<\/a><\/p>\n

All images:<\/p>\n

[fsg_gallery id=”1″]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking when the hell am I going to STFU about Ardeer? Soon, I promise \ud83d\ude09 This was a revisit to walk the last few unexplored paths, go into every building I’ve missed, and hunt down a few loose ends – plus get better pictures of some places for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explosives","category-industrial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/4007994530_454f607804_z.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3yGoo-5b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1348,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/1348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catchingphotons.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}