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

05/08/2026

Hello all,

Geoff here again from Owl Castings. Firstly I must say a big thanks to those FB friends who sent PM's asking various questions on casting metals and subsequent machining. In essence we will try and cast whatever you require in whatever material you require and if you do need machining on the castings we can do this if required. We do prefer to stick to just the supply of unmachined castings but we do have a fully equipped machine shop to carry out whatever is required from our clients.

So I thought you may like to see some locomotive castings that we did this week. Examples of various parts can be seen in the attached images and include:

Traction engine valve bodies
Smoke box door
Motion brackets
Smoke box door hinges
9F brake blocks (8 with taper 2 parallel for untapered central wheel set)
Brackets etc.

The smoke box door and the associated brackets are from our local loco builder Alan. I will bring these to him on my way home later and bring you back in when I see the smoke box onto which they will be attached.

Bye for now!
Geoff.

30/07/2026

Hello all,

Its Geoff here from Owl Castings with a little summer update. The rather hot weather has been very nice and since we have had air conditioning installed in our office its been nice to escape in here from the workshop or foundry for a few moments relief in between jobs. We are very fortunate to have such nice tech!

Nina in our office makes home made elderflower squash and a jug of which is always in the office fridge. It really is lovely on such a hot day! Nina tells me that she picks the flowers in early summer from the hedge rows near her home and follows a recipe that originated from her great grandmother! Traditional recipe's like that must not be forgotton especially when they are so flavoursome.

I have followed all the wonderful updates on both FB and YT of all the steam rallies happening so far over the summer and it obvious that steam has played an important part in many of your summer meet ups over the last few months from both locomotive and traction engines of all scales. Its lovely for me to see this.

So what news of relevance from our little foundry? Well many casting projects are not related to steam so I wont distract you with these but one of which I did find fun. It was for an artist that wanted poppy heads cast in bronze, stems as well. This was fun and the castings from the clients dried poppy heads came out very well with such natural detail captured.

On a more relevant note was a chimney that I cast for our local friend Alan. He is making as you may remember from my previous posts a Dean Single in 7.25" gauge. His build is coming along very well and with such great attention to detail with excellent workmanship. I noticed on his bench a rather fine machining job for the smoke box arrow locking assembly. I thought it was such as nice example of model engineering that I have taken a few pics to share with you.

The chimney I brought to Alan can be seen but since commissioning the casting Alan has decided he is going to keep the ring in copper so watch this space as the finished chimney will be quite a spectacle.

I will update you all with some more interesting castings and related projects over the coming weeks.

In the meantime keep up the wonderful engineering and stay well hydrated and healthy in this beautiful weather.

14/05/2026

A few for your viewing!

14/05/2026

Hello everyone! Its Geoff here from Owl Castings and again using Dave's account😂😂
I will set myself up on FB at some point but I always seem to get side tracked with something or another.

So firstly my most sincere apologies for not posing anything on the Owl Castings site. Every week I speak with a new or existing customer and they mention that they haven't seen any new posts! Well I have to hold my hand up there and admit its my fault. I have been assigned to managing our new CNC system and like any technology that relies on software to make it work its been an intense few months of head scratching and staring at digital screens. However I can now say that after 3 months I have now learnt what I need to and everything seems to be functioning well.

The last 6 months have been interesting in the casting shop with some unusual casting jobs in several metals including, bronze(s), brass, copper and iron. We have had several new clients come on board from various sectors including the following:

1. Sculptural and jewelry making.
2. Yacht repair and marine renovation
3. Traditional game manufacture and repair
...and of course our model locomotive and traction engine requests for various components.

I have to say that some of the most intriguing castings from over the last few months were done for a local artist. These were lost wax castings made from silicone moulds -which in turn moulded small shells and dead sea creatures found along our local coast line. You can see the images of the whelk shells and the crab claw. The detail that nature can achieve is really quite something.

Another interesting job was to copy a yacht stanchion bracket in aluminum. Unfortunatly the client didnt need me to install it back onto the yacht that is located in Palma de Mallorca. That would have been a very nice installation visit!

So again please do excuse my amateur photographic skills. If you like board games there may be something in the following images for you!

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.)

Owl Castings UK

05/08/2026

30/07/2026

14/05/2026

14/05/2026

08/12/2025

08/12/2025

02/12/2025

02/12/2025

31/10/2025

30/10/2025

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