The Bolton Metals Group : Bolton Brass ; Bolton Aerospace ; Bolton Power ; Bolton Technologies

Bolton Aerospace

Bolton Aerospace Ltd, located in Ipswich, has been manufacturing bronzes and special brasses since the earliest days of the company’s existence in the 1880’s.

History :

Bolton Aerospace Ltd, formerly Delta (Manganese Bronze) Ltd / Cerro (Manganese Bronze) Ltd was established in London in 1876 as a producer of cast and wrought copper alloys.

In 1916 the UK Government funded a factory to produce extruded copper-zinc products for munitions and the Manganese Bronze & Brass Co. Ltd accepted responsibility for overseeing production at Ipswich.

In 1920 the factory for wrought copper alloys was fully operational with rolling and extrusion facilities under the ownership of The Manganese Bronze & Brass Co.Ltd. From then until the present day the factory has continued to produce high-quality brasses and bronzes in rod, bar, forgings, sections and hollows.

Activity :

Bolton Aerospace Ltd is a world leader in the manufacture of bronzes and special brasses by extruding, forging and hot rolling.
Our range of alloys includes aluminium bronzes, manganese bronzes, cupro-nickels, cast / wrought phosphor and leaded bronzes.

Aluminium Bronzes, Wrought and Cast : View

The use of aluminium bronze and its ability to withstand corrosion in sea water and other aggressive environments has been well proven over the past 70 years. In many cases it has been shown to be superior to stainless steels particularly under anaerobic or crevice corrosion conditions.
This family of alloys has other important properties including : high strength, non sparking, shock and wear resistance, good performance at cryogenic and elevated temperatures and some variations even have a low magnetic permeability. The alloys have a lower density than steel and other copper based alloys and therefore can offer weight savings for selected applications.

Brasses : View

This category covers a wide range of alloys which consist primarily of copper and zinc with additions of iron, tin, lead, manganese, silicon and aluminium. Although these alloys are of lower strength and corrosion resistance than the aluminium bronzes they do offer enhanced machining characteristics, and can be joined by soldering or brazing.

Welding Alloys : View

To compliment the range of alloys produced by Bolton Aerospace a number of welding alloys are manufactured which can be used to join similar materials or join the copper alloys to mild steel, cast iron and malleable iron.

High Conductivity/Mould Tool Alloys : View

This group of alloys is widely used for resistance welding and in applications where it is necessary to rapidly extract heat, such as injection mould tools for plastics, or aluminium and zinc die-castings.

Many of the alloys can be improved by precipitation hardening which gives increased strength and resistance to softening at elevated temperatures. Special alloys are used in high performance racing engines for valve guides and seats where heat extraction and wear resistance are vital.

Cast/Wrought Phosphor and Leaded Bronzes : View

A broad spectrum of alloys which have been well proven over the years. The phosphor bronze family is noted for its superb wear and bearing characteristics. A number of the variants can be cold worked to enhance their mechanical properties without detriment to the bearing attributes. Having a high copper content and alloyed with tin, phosphor bronzes have excellent corrosion resistance. The gun metals (leaded bronzes) on the other hand have first class corrosion resistance with reasonable bearing properties and contain varying amounts of tin, lead and zinc for different duties.

Cupro Nickels

A number of high strength special alloys are manufactured which are used primarily in aerospace and offshore oil applications.
These alloys have excellent corrosion resistance in sea-water and coupled with high strength have good corrosion fatigue and wear properties.

Forms : Forms

Our applications and markets :

Bolton Aerospace supplies industry with a full range of extruded, forged and hot-rolled products, in a range of alloys, in many shapes and sizes.

Characteristics of Aerospace alloys are :

•	Superior mechanical properties
•	High corrosion resistance
•	High oxidation resistance
•	Low coefficient of friction and antigalling properties

Applications include :

Bushings, bearings for landing gear, retainer cages, valve stems and guides, sleeve bearings, thrust pads, piston crowns....

Major industries rely on our consistently high quality alloys, especially
Aerospace, but also defence, general engineering.....

Quality :

Our fully integrated manufacturing plant includes metallurgical laboratory facilities which undertake spectrographic analysis, mechanical testing and ultrasonic testing.

Mechanical testing is conducted using a computer controlled tensile machine in conjunction with hardness, impact and micrographic examination.

The quality of our products are well recognized within the aerospace industry. The company holds a range of approvals with many end use customer organizations. Additionally, third party approvals have been held and upgraded over many years such that all aerospace material is produced under a system approved to ISO 9001:2000, AS9100 Revision B Certificate No: LRQ 0902066.

Customer approvals include :

•	Airbus UK
•	Boeing DMS 2201
•	GKN Westland Helicopters
•	BAE Systems Military
•	Raytheon Aircraft
•	Messier Dowty
•	SKF Aeroengine UK
•	Rolls Royce RR9000 Sabre
•	Spirit Aero