Member Article

NEPA technology brings Beamish treasures back to the future

Modern technology is being used at a North East museum more noted for sticking to tradition. The North East Productivity Alliance (NEPA) is using new technology to help Beamish Museum give historic exhibits a new lease of life.

County Durham’s open air museum showing the story of the North East during the 1800s and early 1900s, called in the help of NEPA’s Digital Factory specialists at Sunderland University to see how their new Innovation Resource Centre could help with restoration projects.

Paul Jarman, Curator of Transport at Beamish, said: “I gave the specialists damaged objects that needed to be replaced as part of restoration projects, including a steam injector from an 1877 Lewin Locomotive, a handrail off a tram and a cart hub wheel from the Victorian period, to see how they could help.

“Replica parts are usually notoriously hard and costly to source and manufacture, however with the help of the latest digital technologies available, I have been given exact prototypes which are absolutely fantastic and can now be used to manufacture new parts.”

For the work with Beamish NEPA used the Innovation Resource Centre’s new laser scanner. It maps objects exactly and creates a virtual 3D part straight onto a computer, which can then be used on Computer Aided Design Systems to manufacture replica parts. This also allows any broken parts to be fixed by providing the exact measurements.

Dave Knapton, NEPA Digital Factory Lead Consultant, said: “This is the first time we have helped a museum in this way but by being involved with Beamish, it really makes you appreciate how things were made in the past when people had to do these things without the help of modern technology. It has been great working with Beamish to help them solve real problems faced during restoration.”

For more about Digital Factory, visit www.amap.sunderland.ac.uk/digital-factory.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .