Owl Castings UK, Owl Castings Ltd, Margate (2026)

08/12/2025

For some reason I was not able to upload the remaining pictures on my last post so I have added them here in case any of you are interested.

08/12/2025

Goodmorning All, its Geoff here again from Owl Castings Ltd.
I am pleased that so many of you liked the pictures I took when I had the pleasure to visit the 1:1 collection at the now privately owned former Hornby factory in Margate, Kent.

The collection also hosts a large number of full size locomotives, all of which run I believe or at least are between boiler tickets. I was not sure weather I should post them here but from your PM's it seems that there is an interest so here goes. I wont give an individual explanation of the exhibits as I am sure many of you will know far more about them than I do but you can see that there has been no expense spared by the owner in their total renovation and restoration of their beauty. I found the carriages quite fascinating. Especially the carriage that transported the body of Sir Winston Churchill to his final resting place in Baldon.

Sir Winston Churchill's grave is in the humble churchyard of St. Martin's Church in Bladon, Oxfordshire, near his birthplace, Blenheim Palace, where he chose to be buried with his wife, Clementine, and other family members, preferring a quiet resting place over a grander national tomb. Visitors often find this simple, understated gravesite a poignant tribute to the great statesman, with many paying respects on significant dates.

If there is any specific detail you would like on any locomotive of carriage please drop let me know and I will try and find the relevant information for you.

02/12/2025

The level of detail on all these locomotives is incredible. Here are a few more for you.
You will see here the GWR Emporer built by Ken Woodham, which is breath taking to say the least!

02/12/2025

Hello everyone,

Geoff from Owl Castings Ltd. here again and firstly apologies for not posting anything of relevance over the last few weeks. It a busy time leading up to Christmas here in the foundry workshop for us here at Owl and my 3 days/week in the workshop pass very quickly.

Last week I was very fortunate to be included on a tour of what must be the biggest and most exciting collection of steam locomotives I have ever been to. I would guestimate that it probably the biggest private collection in the world. The collection is not open to the general public and its managed on behalf of the owner by one of Dave's friends locally. Its the One:One collection based at the former factory of Hornby Railways in Margate, Kent.

It was a breathtaking experience with full size locomotives and just about every scale of locomotives I have ever seen! I have attached a few pics for you to see for yourself.

One locomotive caught my eye in particular and I felt privileged to get so close to it. The builder is the very well known Ken Woodham who is a regular contributor to our model engineering community I will follow this one up in more detail in my next post.

What locomotives from this world class collection do you recognise?

I apologise in advance for my poor photographic skills but I hope it gives you a taste of this tribute to steam!

31/10/2025

Happy Friday to you all!

Well where to start! My job gets more exciting by the day with yesterdays highlight being a meeting with Alan who lives in the next town along our beautiful coastline from our offices at Owl in Margate.

Alan is building a Dean Single in 7.25" gauge and his progress is quite astonishing. Alan has built many steam locomotives in 2.5", 3.5", 5" and 7.25" so is no stranger to model engineering. A toolmaker by training he now spends his retirement in his very well equipped workshop playing with old motorbikes and making steam locomotives. I have never seen a 7.25" Dean Single anywhere in the UK but I am sure there must be some out there? I have attached a pic or an artists representation of the Great Western Railway class 3031 “Achilles” / “Dean Single” for reference.

As a model engineer myself I find other model engineers workshops a total pleasure to visit. No 2 are ever the same and few are what you would consider tidy, as unlike a commercial machine shop the HSE does not visit. Having said that a model engineer can always lay his/her hand on any item at any time among the piles of clutter laying on almost every bench. Well, not always in my case!

So yesterday after I finished at Owl I headed to Alan's to deliver the 2 large spoked driving wheels for his loco build. We had a great chat over a cuppa and Alan discussed his sequence of operations to bring the wheels to size, given that a 12" diameter is at the max of his chucks holding capacity. I have machined many iron loco wheels myself over the last 45 years and its always interesting listening to another way of doing things to achieve the same end result.

Just before I left Alan managed to clear a small piece of bench space to put the wheels on before chucking one up. I was permitted to take a few pics of this so I can show you all.

Given it was nearly dinner time when I dropped off the wheels it was lights off in the workshop for Alan, ready for a day of machining today (Friday). When he asked if I wanted to pop by 1st thing on my way into work I could get some video of the start of the machining operations. Obviously I could resist popping by and I have attached a few snipits that may be of interest to you. I didn't stay too long but before I left Alan was happy with the 1st stage of the wheel prep having being completed.

So overall a very enjoyable 1st part week at Owl Castings. I have the nick name 'New Boy' at Owl which I do quite like as I am the oldest in the team and it makes me feel like an apprentice again, of which I have some great (but fading) memories.

Anyways bye for now and I will find some more things to show you all next week.

Geoff.

30/10/2025

So here I am on my 2nd day at Owl and its a beautiful sunny one. The sky is blue and it feels like we may have a little summer left to go. Donna made me coffee this morning which was a lovely start to my day. She has since put her earl plugs in to listen to more Radio 6. I must give that station a listen sometime.

Although at nearly 63 I am still getting used to this very cleaver intraweb and all its capabilities. Facebook is new to me and I don't have a personal account as yet so am using the Owl one which I think is connected with Dave's account but it seems the message is getting out from the likes that seem to be generated. Please forgive me if I accidentally post in duplicate.

One of the first things I did today was to put a CNC'ed, 2 part, sand casting pattern back into the store. I thought this may make an interesting story for you as I managed to get some pics of the process from Ted our foundryman.

The pattern was to cast 2 driving wheels for a Dean Single in 7.25" gauge. The builder of this loco is quite close to Owl so I have asked to personally drop the wheels over later in the hope I can meet and talk to the builder who is a friend of all the guys here at Owl as he is a retired tool maker and very experienced model locomotive builder.

The story starts in the 1st pic with the client sending Owl the drawing of the wheel he requires. This is a fairly crude drawing and does not give anywhere near as much detail as we need to make the pattern accurately. However the client has done significant research from old photos and original works drawings to fill in the blanks regarding the spoke geometry and inner rim details. This drawing was then made into a CAD file to allow us to make the pattern via CNC onto aluminium stock. A minimum of 2mm was added to all the sides that would require machining to tolerance. Steel locating pins were than added onto the rear of 1 side with reciprocating holes on the opposite side to align the pattern in the sand flask. A pic of the open sand flask with the pattern removed showing the impression is attached.

The final wheels are over 315mm in diameter and are fairly large for 7.25" gauge locomotives. These will look amazing once machined and I hope I can keep you updated as to how the client gets on with these.

The final pic is of the finished raw castings following a visit to the fettling shop. I do hope I can see these being machined. I hope you enjoy the pics.

Bye for now.

Geoff (new boy at Owl Castings Ltd.)

29/10/2025

So my 1st day at Owl has been one of learning where everything is and general ways of doing things. Overall its been a thoroughly enjoyable day despite the heavy rain outside and grey skies, not surprising for October in Margate I would say.

So my lucky dip into the blast cabinet where Donna spends several hours a day yielded several nice small castings that some of you may find interesting. One part that I will discuss is a valve guide and its story to finished casting in bronze is typical of how Owl Castings Ltd. works. I have summarised in 4 pics the sequence of events.

1. Generally a drawing is supplied of the part required. Often these are from old plans of static or locomotive steam builds. Pic. 1. shows the part required.

2. This drawing is then modeled into a 3D CAD file by Peter our in house CAD specialist. At this stage any changes in the final casting can be made such as added material to surfaces that will be machined to tolerance. In this case 2mm was added to the faces that are required to be of an exact tolerance. Pic. 2&3 show the CAD model and the red arrows show the surfaces where material has been added.
Its quite common for clients to supply their own CAD models which are also most welcome.

3. Once the CAD has been approved by the client the next stage is to send the CAD model to the printer that prints out a pattern in a synthetic wax. This wax pattern is the same shape and size as the final casting. Shrinkage is added by the printing software to take into account the minor shrinkage that will occur from pattern to final casting.
This pattern then joins a host of other patterns often for many clients onto a wax casting tree for the lost wax process. I wont bore you with pics of this as there are many on Owl Castings web site.

4. Once cast, in this case in a bronze the part is cut from the casting tree and cleaned up by Donna in the rather nice sand blasting cabinet. Donna listens to Radio 6 with her earphones in while blasting. Apparently this channel has some good eclectic music...?

5. The final casting can be seen in the final pic 4. This will now be packed and shipped to the client for machining and final installation.

So for those of you unfamiliar with the casting process I hope this helps. I will keep you all posted of interesting cast and machined parts over the coming months and if you have any questions please do ask.

Anyway Bye for now as its time for me to get organised for some machining of laser cut parts for tomorrow.

Geoff.

29/10/2025

Dear FaceBook followers of Owl Castings Ltd.

Firstly let me introduce myself, my name is Geoff and I am a retired machinist with over 45 years tool room experience. Today is my first official day as a new employee (part time 3 days/week) at Owl.

Although I am enjoying being retired I miss the vibrancy of a machine shop and feel fortunate that (through Owl's workshop) I can still have access to machines and the company of fellow engineers to continue my hobby and benefit Owl as a small business. A chance meeting with Dave (the firm owner) in our local pub gave me this wonderful opportunity.

My role as well as managing casting and machining jobs is to give regular updates of the parts we make for model engineers of which I am one. I have made static engines and locomotives in 7.25", 5" and 3,5" scale as well as working on full size traction engines, all steam, so understand the needs and requirements of steam enthusiasts and model engine makers.

Over the coming months I will aim to post individual parts that we have made for clients with either the drawing we have modeled the part from or an image of what it will look like once completed.

I will look forward to chatting to you all as the weeks go by and helping you with your model engineering cast metal components or general model engineering questions.

Please feel free to ping me a message if you have any queries as to what we can do to help your build progress.

Look out for my next post as I am going to go now to the sand blasting cabinet to take out a few parts to show you all.

Bye for now!

Geoff.

30% off all laser cuts!Materials we commonly work with are mild steel, brass & stainless. Drop us an email on info@owlca...

24/06/2025

30% off all laser cuts!

Materials we commonly work with are mild steel, brass & stainless.

Drop us an email on [email protected] for your quote.

Offer ends 31/08/25

08/04/2025

New Project Alert!

We're thrilled to share that we've recently completed a set of high-quality castings for a Triumph Stag engine refurbishment project. These raw castings are now in the hands of our customer for the finishing and installation stages.

Are you working on a classic car restoration project? Let us showcase our expertise in producing intricate and complex components for your restoration.

Happy to answer any of your questions [email protected].

30/01/2025

For those of you interested as to what will go into the bogie frames! The wheel sets are done . The axles and wheel webs were cast in aluminium and heat treated to T4 machined and then steel tires shrunk and turned to our profile standard (the tender base was also heat treated to T4). Bearings are two 6202's each side. More to follow as this loco starts to get much bigger.

29/01/2025

We had several PM's asking to see the cast aluminium bogie frames once assembled. Our client is making a wonderful job of the castings. The next images will show stage 2 with the axles, bearings and wheels.

Owl Castings UK

08/12/2025

08/12/2025

02/12/2025

02/12/2025

31/10/2025

30/10/2025

29/10/2025

29/10/2025

24/06/2025

08/04/2025

30/01/2025

29/01/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category