During one of my general browsing sessions around the tinterweb, I came upon this page, with this image...



Not sure when the picture was taken (mid/late 60's probably), but I spent a number of years, during the 70's and 80's, as part of the team maintaining this beast.

Though it may not look it, it was, for the time, quite innovative, with automatic cycling of furnace charging/discharging and speed controlled extrusions - the latter being by an electro-mechanical computer of sorts, which was a bit like Dr. Who's Tardis, but stuffed with uni-selectors and post office relays.

Further delving around this site then led me to this and this showing a forging press that's very similar to the one at Wiggin - and another machine I spent almost my entire working life (on and off) maintaining. (N.B. Once a sister company to SMW, Doncasters are still going.) And finding this then spurred me on to this site and this page, which does show an image of the Wiggin forge press (middle) and an image of the top crosshead (bottom) when it was in for remachining during the the early part of 2009.

If interested, further details of the forge press refurb. can be found by clicking the third link below on that page, and further pictures of the whole process (dismantling, machining and rebuild) can be found here - a number of which were taken by me, hence the dubious quality.

Finally, the following video shows a two column open die forge press (albeit larger and more modern) and railbound manipulator in action.

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