Tat Bank Road frontage
History
British Industrial Plastics (BIP) is the oldest polymer material manufacturer in the UK, and amongst the oldest in the world. The company was originally founded as British Cyanides in 1894 when two neighbouring companies both experimenting with the production of cyanide - Albright & Wilson and Oldbury Alkali Company - joined forces to build a factory on a piece of adjacent land. The fortunes of the company were changed in the mid-1920s with the development of a process for the condensation of thiourea with formaldehyde. The production of this new resin was to be a major breakthrough in the development of plastics. By the early 30’s, thiourea-formaldehayde was replaced by urea-formaldehyde which could be worked at much lower temperatures.
Part of the production works in 1949
In order to encourage wider use of this revolutionary material - with the unusual tradename of Beetle - the company found it necessary to purchase its own moulding plant, The Streetly Manufacturing Company Limited in 1929. This thinking, and confidence, that “if industry can’t supply what we want, then we’ll make it ourselves” led, significantly, to the setting up of its own tool making company, BIP Tools Limited, in 1936 and, 13 years later, its own moulding press manufacturing company BIP Engineering Limited.
The Oldbury site also manufactured of melamine formaldehyde resins and moulding powder, resulting from the long-standing technical liaison between BIP and its original amino resin licensees in the USA. Speciality resins were developed for a range of industries with a variety of applications.
The Oldbury site in 1964
Our Visit
After a heads-up from PrettyVacant71, we visited during the site's shutdown period between Christmas and New Year, meaning the place was pretty quiet. Most of the areas we looked around are out of use, however it was clear much of the site is still live, and I'm sure will be a lot more active now the workers will have returned.
Visited with @SpiderMonkey, @clebby and PrettyVacant71
AMP Production
The bulk of the closed down areas of the plant were for for the production of Amino Moulding Powders (AMP). This is a powdered form of plastic, the raw material of other production facilities that manufature plastic products.
Overview of the Amino Moulding Powders Production Process
One of the four rotary driers
End view of rotary drier
Rotary drier control panel
One of the mixing units, part of the wet granulation process
Partly dismantled blenders
Machinery made by International Combustion
Dry granulation elevators and coolers
Extruder, elevator and cooler - these form the dry granulation process
Continued....
Last edited:
