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The Grafton steam crane, designed in the 1880s, pushed, pulled and shunted incredibly heavy loads right up to the 1960s. These machines were the forklifts of their day, working in all areas of industry, from the docks and railways to steelworks, quarries and timber yards. Graftons were renowned for their power, strength, solidity and longevity.
Blists Hill Victorian Town is a museum which recreates life as it was lived in the 1890s. There, Graham Collis is the foundry manager in Europe's last remaining steam-powered wrought iron works. He lives and breathes Victorian engineering and does everything exactly as it was done over 100 years ago, except for one thing: he has to use a forklift to move the heavy loads around the workshop. His dream is to have a working steam crane to complete the historic workshop.
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The museum has a 1937 Grafton steam crane – No 2446 – but unfortunately it has been left rusting in the bushes for the past 20 years. The boiler, jib arm, cogs and cables have been taken apart by an enthusiastic band of volunteers who then ran out of steam. Claire and Suggs agree to get the crane up and running again.
They enlist the help of steam experts Ian Howard and Jack Meaker, who are aghast when they see the huge pile of bits that was once a steam crane.
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While Ian and Jack get stuck into rebuilding the crane, John Challon, the museum's curator of technology, supervises the laying of railway tracks for it to operate on. He and Claire also shotblast and paint all the mechanical parts: the crankshaft, the engine block (containing two pistons which drive the gears, clutch and cogs) and the jib arm.
The huge vertical boiler is passed by the boiler inspectors, leaving Ian and Jack with the massive task of remaking the external fittings.
Claire has to cast new fire bars for the grate of the steam crane's firebox – and what better place to do the work than the Ironbridge Foundry. First she has to make a mould using sand. A wooden pattern, exactly the same shape as the fire bar, is pressed into a sand tray. When it is removed, a perfect mould is left imprinted in the sand. The Ironbridge furnace is stoked with a mixture of coke, lime and scrap iron to produce the molten iron for the casting at 1,200°C. The molten iron can then be poured into the mould.
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While Ian, Claire and Jack deal with the nuts and bolts of the restoration, Suggs is busy looking into the history of No 2446. He discovers that the crane worked at the George Sand Ironworks in Nottingham for 30 years. He even manages to track down David Cartwright, an engineer who had worked with the crane.
Once the crane has been reassembled, it's time to fit the cables. The jib has two sets of cables on either side which support the jib arm, and a third that doubles back on itself which actually does the lifting.
Before being allowed to operate. The crane has to be tested with 6.25 tonnes of weights. It passes the safety test and now it's time to get the crane working. A delighted Graham Collis takes the controls of this 67-year-old marvel of steam engineering.
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