Calder Industrial Materials Ballast Weights and Bespoke Lead Components

Calder Industrial Materials is a specialist lead engineering company that processes and coverts raw lead on an industrial scale.

Bespoke lead components for renewable applications

Calder designs and manufactures bespoke lead components that are used as ballast weights in the offshore sector and for radiation shielding in healthcare and NDT facilities.

Every day, approximately 100,000kg of recycled lead ingots and slabs are delivered to the company’s purpose-built manufacturing facility, where more than 150 skilled and dedicated operators cast, roll, extrude, precision machine, cold forge and spin them into finished components.

Large ballast weights for tidal turbines

With the ever-increasing growth in renewable energy, Calder has targeted the subsea tidal power market, where there is a requirement for large ballast weights used to secure tidal turbines to the seabed.

As a converter of approximately twenty million kg of lead each year, Calder’s design, manufacturing and project management capabilities are respected throughout the industry.

By using SolidWorks 3D, the company is able to electronically send drawings to its CNC machining centres, where it produces precision components for customers in the UK and worldwide.

Calder’s major markets are offshore, nuclear, construction, healthcare, research, defence and industrial.

The company also extrudes lead up to a maximum diameter of 160mm and produces cold forged components. This is the preferred manufacturing method for radiation shielding.

Centrifugally spun lead shot for steel fabrications

Calder is the only company in the UK that produces high quantities of centrifugally spun lead shot ranging from 0.4mm to 1.6mm, which can be used to fill steel fabrications that act as subsea weights in the oil and gas and tidal energy sectors.

With melting pots ranging from 150kg to 60,000kg, Calder is able to fill steel fabrications and vessels weighing up to 75,000kg with molten lead.

They are also the only company in the UK to manufacture high volumes of lead wool.

Calder produces a large variety of cast bricks ranging from a few grams in weight to 10,000kg. These weights can be supplied either uncoated or coated with a PVC or painted finish, if required. They are ideal for use as ballast on barges and sea going vessels.

Lead is a very resilient metal in a low temperature / high-pressure environment. Its weight of 11,340kg per cubic metre makes it an ideal material for subsea ballast weights.

Calder has a mild steel fabrication department that manufactures steel frames and components weighing up to 20,000kg.

About Calder Industrial Materials

Calder is accredited to ISO 9001, 14001 and 18001, and is a member of the Lead Sheet Association.

The company, which was established in 1889 in Chester, UK, employs qualified welder / fabricators that have many years of experience.