The Classic Machinery Network

Hi,
Compressors etc. have been described on here as the forgotten items of plant.
There was one large compressor that worked in my area back in the 1960s, which, possibly because it bore a strange makers name, I havent forgotten.
The name was "LEAD WOOL" of Snodland England. This was the only one of these I've seen.
I Googled the name and came up with these two pics.

A bit more research and I came up with this.
Has anyone else seen one Does anyone know anything about the company
Fred

A new one on me interesting stuff there Fred.

Jeremy

Hello Fred
I can remember seeing photos of this compressors a long while back whilst researching compressor types,I forgot all about this make.I think they were powered by a Fordson TVO engine. Where was this compressor situated ? . Never seen them in use on road jobs.
Perhaps they were other well known make compressors with "lead wool " company branding.And compressors used on their jobs caulking and cleaning and pressure testing jobs perhaps

company details ................

Lead wool, loose and bagged. From a trade catalog, 1947.Lead wool consists of thin strands of lead metal that can be used to cold-caulk cast iron and steel pipes. [1] It was manufactured by the New York Lead Wool Company in the United States[2] and by The Lead Wool Company, Limited in Snodland, Kent, England.[3]

The Lead Wool Company (the British company) was incorporated on 9 October 1919[4] (although some references indicate that it was active before that date) and was still active in 1983.[5] The British company also developed a device to test pipe joints internally.[6]

The company's factory had been demolished by 1994, according to a report on archaeological excavations near the factory's site.[7]


Martyn

My guess is that old compressor was purchased from the Lead Wood company and used to supply air on whatever that housed compressor was connected to.Those old twin piston two stage compressors were very reliable, we still use them on railway locos today , modern compressors are single screw or vane type these days I guess that one was 1940's. vintage.
Martyn

Hello Martyn,
The two pics are of the remains of a compressor house at a small Mica mine/quarry somewhere on an offshore Scottish Island.
The Lead Wool compressor I remember was used allongside a big Holman machine to supply air to two concrete spraying outfits, (It was diesel), I think it had a Dorman engine.
The concrete spraying machines were towed behind five ton flat trucks which were loaded with dry mixed concrete.
The dry concrete was shoveled from the lorry into the hopper top of the mixer/sprayer and water was released from a bowser supply.
The whole thing was air powered and the mixed concrete, (grout), was blasted onto the work through a flexible hose and gun.
It was used to restore reinforced concrete work on walls and bridges where the cover had spawled off and exposed the reinforcement. The surfaces to be treated were sand-blasted / scabbled first, also using the compressors.
Large areas were treated including columbs, beams and walls adding about 40 mm. of concrete cover.

I knew about the Lead Wool caulking, (I've seen it used). The company were in New York before the British Snodland Co. was set up.
I was realy refering to their involvement in compressors when I asked the question.
Fred

More on Lead Wool compressors.

In the 60s/70s the Lead Wool company was into crane hire. Fairly certain they ran an early Coles 12ton telescopic.

Hi All
The Lead Wool company was local to me when I was growing up and by that time ( early eighties ) was mainly into mobile crane hire and had their yard behind Snodland railway station with an engineering workshop situated further down the road by the river Medway, which carried out general engineering with a bias towards compressed air projects and shutdown maintenance which is where the crane hire business may have originally come from.They may have done maintenance work in the local paper mills.When I was an apprentice for Tilcon they used to carry out general welding work around the various plants/depots and used to invoice under the name Foalpost Engineering T/A The Leadwool Company, so the original company had probably gone into receivership at sometime and the name and assets purchased by Foalpost.The crane hire division had mainly Iron Fairy and Coles cranes of the type operated from the crane carriers cab so as previously mentioned may have been more into factory maintenance work.The whole area has been cleared and is now housing, the company may have disappeared around the early to mid ninties