CF8M Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Does anyone have any information about UNBRAKO Steel in Kiveton Park? Surely not another melting operation gone to the wall. I remember when the melting shop was at the bottom of the hill in Waleswood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyer Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Don't know but still got a lot of their tools they're unbrako Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devlin Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Funning feeling that the production line is now in India... check out their website, I can remember my daughters friends Mum getting made redundant ... probably 6/7 years ago from there, but don't know if that was a result of a takeover that moved production or just someone buying the brand after closure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelman79 Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 im almost certain that unbrako closed its melting shop about 7 years ago as has being said above,the firm i used to work for made ingot moulds for them and it wasnt a sudden thing because you could see the orders for moulds gradually dying out but i left before anything certain was confirmed by them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigeric Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 i remember unbrako very vividly.i worked for them in the 70s.worked on the side of the pit strippingthe ingots,very hot work.if anybody remembers me i was the lad who fell in the pit just after we had tapped it.luckily i was pulled out by a lad called graham peat.thanks to him im still here.there was a big lad i remember called graham[cant remember his surname] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskyman Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 I wonder if anybody has any photos of the Unbrako football team from 75/6 season as we won the league then, all I have is the cut out from the worksop paper and the green un cheers would love a copy of the team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WW2005 Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Does anyone have any information about UNBRAKO Steel in Kiveton Park? Surely not another melting operation gone to the wall. I remember when the melting shop was at the bottom of the hill in Waleswood. I worked for Unbrako 2004/5 - after being made redundant by their neighbour, Kiveton Park Steel. Sadly, Unbrako no longer had a melting shop in operation and was down to processing bars from imported sources. I believe the capital then behind the operation came from GE Capital and their decision in May/June of 2005 to "pull the plug" resulted in the final closure of this once proud plant. Having previously taken redundancy from British Steel Rotherham and then had the same experience from Kiveton Park, I was feeling a little bit "picked on" but decided to take retirement as a better option. I had always taken the view that the "big boys" needed the smaller operators, the specialists of which both Kiveton and Unbrako were prime examples. Sadly, these small, specialist operators have all had to bow to the financial winds and, forgive the pun, the steel available now is bog standard "any colour you like so long as it is black" and the specialist has to try to achieve properties which were formerly the province of a vast array of alloy and carbon steels but now from a very much reduced range. Couple this with British Steel (now Tata) producing steel in 180 tonne furnaces (or 90 tonne with ladle trimming) every 2 hours or so and you can appreciate that the economics for 1 tonne of this and half a tonne of that no longer fits in with the "economies of scale. Years ago I was told by a French import merchant - "If you have a job in steel, you have a job for life!" - unfortunately this is no longer true and Unbrako is just one of the names which will fade from memory along with Steel, Peech and Tozer, Sammy Fox, English Steel and so many other fine names. Incidentally, during my time at BSC I also represented the interests of Brown Bayley and Firth Brown - but that is another story altogether! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskyman Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 i remember unbrako very vividly.i worked for them in the 70s.worked on the side of the pit strippingthe ingots,very hot work.if anybody remembers me i was the lad who fell in the pit just after we had tapped it.luckily i was pulled out by a lad called graham peat.thanks to him im still here.there was a big lad i remember called graham[cant remember his surname] I worked there in the seventies and vaguely remember someone falling in the pit I think the other Graham is Graham Tune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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