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Title: STORY OF A STEEL WIRE ROPE

Reference number: 1354

Date: 1946

Director: d. Stanley L. Russell

Sponsor: Martin Black and Company Limited (Wire Ropes)

Production company: Russell Productions in assoc. with Thames and Clyde Film Co. Ltd.

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 32.10 mins

Description: How steel wire rope is manufactured at the Coatbridge works of Martin Black & Co. (Wire Ropes) Ltd.

Section (1.25) to (2.58) taken from ref. 0111 WORLD OF STEEL.

Also known by working title STRANDS OF STEEL.

See also ref. 1638

Preservation of this film supported by the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Credits: ph. Frank McLachlan
comm. Lioner Gamlin
comm. w. Albert E. Machie and Jan Jack

Shotlist: Credits (.27) Gvs various factory processes involved in producing steel wire rope (1.25) Gvs shop floor Colville's steel rolling mill, men using giant pincers to feed white hot steel coils into conduits (2.58) Exterior factory premises Speedwell Wire Company, Coatbridge (3.12) Good railway, wagons deliver materials (3.58) Interior planning and production office. Gvs staff at work at desks (5.19) Gvs rods being fed into furnace and shots of various stages of production. Gvs men operating machinery, steel rods passing through various machines. Shots of the "drawing" of steel wire rods (10.02) End of Reel 1 (10.24) Wire passing into dye, through welding process, galvanising and zinc coating processes (13.00) Further reduction by drawing. Girl threads up strands of wire (13.40) Shots of dye grinding shop and women workers (14.41) Wet drawing mill (14.50) Testing wire for strength (15.30) Testing wire at the ropery (17.30) Gvs winding department. Loading coils of wire onto bobbins. Bobbins are taken to stranding department. Bobbin is loaded onto stranding machine, the machine is prepared and switched on (21.02) End of Reel 2 (21.50) Gvs stranding machine. Finished strand wound onto take-up. Gvs machines. Men and women at work on shop floor. Loading strands onto "closing" machine. Gvs machine as finished rope emerges and is fed onto big wooden drum (26.06) Gvs closing machine and shop floor (26.53) Gvs splicing techniques (29.30) Testing the finished rope for strength at breaking point (30.18) Finished rope is packed, loaded onto lorry (30.41) Gvs rope pulling excavator on construction site (31.17) Montage sequence of wire ropes in use (31.54) ecs (32.10)