On the face of it, there is no apparent connection between a long-established paint manufacturing company, with almost 75 years’ trading history, and a small digital communications agency, still in its first twelve months of business. The link, however, is The Prince’s Trust, which as part of its programme enabling 18-30 year olds to start their own businesses, enlists the support of larger organisations to act as mentors for these startup ventures, providing commercial advice, expertise, guidance and counselling.

It was indeed The Prince’s trust in the North West that introduced Manchester-based HMG Paints to three enterprising young graduates, Dan Walford (25), Chris Bartle (27) and John-Paul Phillippe (24), who set up Fusion Visual Communications in Chorlton. HMG’s Chairman and long-time MD, Brian Falder is an active supporter of the Trust and volunteered the firm as a Business Mentor, while its Marketing Manager, Alison Patterson, has been providing Fusion with practical and conceptual marketing advice, to help get the business established in Manchester.

Since 1976, The Prince’s Trust has supported almost half a million young people through training, mentoring and financial assistance, helping them to realise their potential and even transform their lives. Its business programme offers loans and grants to unemployed and under-employed 18-30 year olds to start their own business, with over 4,000 young people receiving start-up finance last year, at an average cost of £3,300. Most of these Trust-supported businesses survive the first year and 55% continue trading successfully into their third year and beyond.

Dan, Chris and John-Paul are all graduates of the University of Derby, in Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and Music Technology respectively, and last year put forward proposals to the Trust for setting up a digital communications business, subsequently receiving initial funding and expert advice on accounting and administrative procedures. Although starting in Derby, Fusion later relocated to Chorlton, South Manchester, with the support of regional Trust executive, Paul Smith.

“The Prince’s Trust organisation has been really good in Manchester and they’ve put us in touch with lots of people. It’s also a great city to be part of,” says Dan. “London is regarded as the major design scene, but Manchester is just as influential, with a thriving arts and music community.”

Fusion employs modern interactive digital technology to bring a new dimension to marketing solutions, combining information-giving with an element of entertainment. Among the digital solutions it offers are CD-Rom style business cards, carrying animation, video clips and music, multimedia CV’s that incorporate dynamic creative portfolios, website design based on html and animated flash technology, and eyecatching banner advertising for the internet. Current clients range from universities to household brands and projects include an online actors’ CV and showreel database, for London-based Actors Inc.

Business Mentors for the Prince’s Trust must be prepared to commit around half a day each month to meetings, counselling and generally developing a professional relationship with their young entrepreneurs. To this end, HMG’s Alison Patterson meets regularly with the Fusion team, helping to develop their marketing approach and even sending out a mailshot to Manchester businesses on their behalf.

“The Trust felt that HMG would assist us with networking especially, in a city we’re totally new to, and that’s certainly been the case. It really helps to have an established company promoting our cause and introducing us to their business contacts,” adds Dan. “Brian Falder calls us personally from time to time, offering sound advice and spurring us on with his enthusiasm, so the relationship is working really well.”

With its original mentor in Derby, Henri Winand, Vice Chairman of Mergers & Acquisitions at Rolls Royce, still helping out on the business side, Fusion has clearly had the best possible start to its venture and, as demonstrated by a growing portfolio of clients, is definitely keen to make a go of it. The firm can be contacted via its website at www.fusion-vis.com.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

The conservationist role of paint is often underestimated, yet it helps to protect and preserve many vital raw materials like steel, wood and masonry, extending their service life and saving valuable natural resources. Manchester-based HMG Paints demonstrated this recently when it supplied over 500 litres of its rust inhibiting primer, Ferrozinc, to protect the hull of mainland Britain’s only surviving World War I warship, Her Majesty’s Monitor M33.

The 650 ton, shallow draft, monitor-class steam warship, built originally in 1915, is the subject of an extensive restoration exercise by Hampshire County Council Museum Service, under the direction of Project Manager and Curator of Maritime Vessels, Peter Lawton. Due to funding issues and discussions on how best to integrate M33 within the naval heritage area at Portsmouth’s historic dockyard, the decision has been taken to temporarily mothball the vessel, possibly until 2008. Following an extensive anti-corrosive electrolytic process on the hull, designed to remove chloride and passivate the steel plates, the now completely bare metal is being protected by a single coating of HMG’s Ferrozinc, to provide an anti-corrosion barrier in storage.

Based on an ironclad warship vessel used during the American Civil War, Monitors were first employed by Britain in World War I, when it needed shallow draft vessels suitable for shore bombardment, to strike at territory held by Germany and support landings of troops. Commissioned by Winston Churchill, a new class of small Monitor, mounted with two 6 inch guns, was built by Harland & Wollf in 1915, with M29, M32 and M33 all launched on the same day, 22nd May 1915. M33 provided support for the evacuation of troops at Gallipoli and was then reallocated to the Aegean for the rest of the war, before seeing action again in North Russia in 1919, to cover the withdrawal of Allied and White Russian forces.

After the war, there was little use for coastal bombardment vessels, so most of the small Monitors were disposed of, M32 going to Shell; however, M33 was recommissioned in 1925 as a minelaying training ship, later receiving the name Minerva. Up for disposal again in 1939, Minerva was reprieved and converted to a floating boom defence support ship in 1943, with its engines, boilers and funnel all removed, before being returned after the war to Portsmouth, as a floating workshop and office. In 1987, she was sold by the MoD to Hartlepool Ship Preservation Trust and taken by barge to the North East; but the trust ran out of funds and, four years later, Hampshire County Council decided to restore M33 itself, at her old base in Portsmouth.

“M33 is an important part of our naval heritage. Apart from being one of few examples of early 20th century warships and the variety of roles she performed, M33 was equipped with technologically interesting systems that were still in use until the 1960’s,” says Peter Lawton. “It was one of the first to be fitted with radio, a steam turbine generator for heating, passive hydrophones for seeking out submarines and a high-velocity anti-aircraft gun for anti-aircraft fire. It was the first ship with inboard latrines and the first to use light fuel oil.”

Most of the work has now been completed to restore the exterior of the ship as near as possible to her 1915 configuration, including the steering compartment, fore and aft guns, shell handling room, masts and funnel. A preliminary examination of the hull showed a number of areas for concern, however, and the M33 was dry docked, right alongside HMS Victory in Dry Dock 1. A massive clean-up operation of the hull was undertaken, during which 11 tonnes of rust and debris were removed using high pressure water jets. The dry docking also enabled samples to be cut from the hull and it was determined that an electrolytic desalination process, employing a weak electrical current and a dilute solution of sodium carbonate, should be used to remove chloride-sponsored corrosion, especially between the riveted joints, and to passivate the steel plates.

Thus, the hull was flooded to a depth of 1.5 metres, just above the water line, for a period of four months, the largest ever application of this technique and of great interest to the nautical heritage community. During the process, saponification by hydrogen ions also removed the paint, leaving bright, bare steelwork. As the M33 was due to be mothballed for up to five years, consideration was meanwhile given to how to protect the bare metal so that corrosion would not recur if even the slightest amount of moisture were present.

HMG’s Ferrozinc was the solution adopted; this is a high performance, water-thinnable rust conversion primer, with excellent long-term barrier properties. An easily applied single pack material, it is normally overcoated with a suitable primer and topcoat system for prolonged corrosion resistance, but can be left as an uncoated film, as with this application.

“We carried out tests, by taking samples of steel plate, giving them a quick coat of Ferrozinc, and immersing them in water, for almost a year,” says Peter Lawton. “There are still no signs of rusting and we reached the conclusion that it’s a pretty impressive product.”

Proud of its role in heritage preservation, HMG Paints supplied the museum with a total of 525 litres of Ferrozinc, at a very generous discount, and has taken a keen interest in the M33 project ever since. The primer was used to treat some 300 sq m of hull steelwork, again with just a single coat, and there is every confidence that Ferrozinc will perform exactly as desired.

In the future, full-sized dioramas will be created within the hull to give visitors a real idea of what the engine room, boilers and other internal systems looked like around 1915; while a hole cut through the foc’sle in 1924, for mine storage, will be adapted for visitor access and a viewing platform. M33 is already listed in the core collection of the National Register of Historic Vessels and a lottery bid is being compiled by Hants County Council to help display the ship in all its former glory.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

For more information about the Monitor M33 project, contact:
Treadgold Museum
Bishop Street
Portsmouth
PO1 3DA
Telephone 023 9282 4745
email peter.lawton@hants.gov.uk

A Salford Corporation double-decker bus, which first saw service during World War II and was still in use for driver training in the 1970’s, has been painstakingly restored with a little help from HMG Paints. Number 235, a 1939 AEC Regent Mk 1, is a living exhibit at Manchester’s Museum of Transport, one of the largest collections of vintage buses and coaches in the UK, which has been fully refurbished over a decade and now repainted at the workshops of local bus operator, Stagecoach Manchester.

The bus was hand painted by professional refinishers using HMG’s C71 and SAH 300 coach enamels, in the original livery of rich red and ivory, and embellished with ornate transfers and the city’s coat of arms. Indeed, the Mayor of Salford and ex-bus company employees from the 1930’s were delighted with the authenticity and quality of finish. Completed in time to commemorate the centenary of Salford Corporation, it will feature at the museum’s ‘Christmas Cracker’ event on 6th and 7th December, which will include festive stalls and free local bus rides for visitors.

The Museum of Transport in Boyle Street, off Queen’s Road, which houses over 80 vehicles dating from 1890 to 1980 and attracts over 12,000 people annually, is only minutes away from HMG’s Collyhurst works and the paint manufacturer often helps out with free and discounted product, in order to preserve the nation’s transport heritage. HMG is a major supplier of finishing and refinishing systems to the bus and coach industry, produces one of the most comprehensive selections of transport coatings and primers, and is renowned for its colour matching service, so is ideally equipped to assist with this type of high quality restoration exercise.

Powered by a 8.8 litre engine, No 235 was built by Park Royal and has just 48 seats, which is fewer than a modern single-decker. Delivered in 1939, it was called into service a year later, when a wartime shortage of spares forced Salford Corporation to bring its brand new buses into commission. After a tough service life, it was converted to a driver training vehicle, complete with two steering wheels, in 1948 and continued in this role until 1971, serving some 20 years longer than similar buses.

Having been subsequently painted in Salford’s later green and cream livery, No 235 reverted to its original red/ivory colours in 1975, although it was only in the last ten years that a full restoration project has been undertaken by the museum. This has involved part repanelling of the bodywork, new seats and floors, and fitting replacement handrails, as well as a complete engine overhaul, so professional refinishing to bring the bus back to its original specification was the obvious final touch.

Alan Gaskell is a Director of the Museum of Transport, as well as a full-time Schedules Manager for Stagecoach Manchester, and he enlisted the help of his employers in the refinishing phase of the project, who donated their services free-of-charge. In a genuine example of a ‘busman’s holiday’, Alan has also been actively involved in the restoration work, as a break from his normal role of scheduling bus timetables and staff duty rosters.

HMG brushing paints were supplied for the job, since these are the traditional materials that Stagecoach uses and because of the extra depth of colour obtainable through hand finishing. C71 Machinery Enamel and SAH 300 Polyurethane Enamel were specified, the slow solvent nature of these products making them ideal for this application, as a prolonged ‘wet edge’ time enables larger areas to be brushed.

HMG’s C71 is a synthetic alkyd enamel, with outstanding film hardness and durability, which is widely used for heavy duty vehicle finishing and repair work, affording good resistance to oil and traffic grime. SAH 300 is a high gloss, tough polyurethane alkyd, again with excellent brushing properties, which has excellent abrasion and chemical resistance. HMG also provided a synthetic enamel primer, which was applied as an undercoat after degreasing and fine sanding the metal substrate.

HMG’s shade matching to original paint samples was excellent, according to the museum, and the quality of finish achieved by Stagecoach was high, having worked intermittently on the project over several weeks. The 1940’s livery was finished with white, gold, black and blue lining, vinyls and lettering.

The external and interior refit is now complete and No 235 moved back to base under its own power, although unfortunately a damaged sump and leaking oil mean the museum is still seeking replacement parts from other preservation groups. Nevertheless, the pristine Salford bus is now on display and can be seen every Wednesday, weekends and public holidays (admission charges - Adults £3, Children/Concessions £1.75, Under 5’s Free).

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

It’s true, HMG paint really does give you wings! Last year, HMG’s high gloss Acrythane acrylic polyurethane helped the celebrated Starchaser rockets to fly faster and climb 300 metres higher. Now, HMG’s cellulose dope and brightly coloured LMP water-based enamels have adorned a flying Miss Piggy that won the zany Red Bull Flugtag event at London’s Hyde Park. True, the Starchaser supersonic research rocket attained an altitude of almost 6,000 metres, whereas the timber, canvas and polystyrene Miss Piggy achieved just 4.6 metres, but who’s counting?

The Red Bull Flugtag, or ‘flying day’, is a crazy competition for unpowered flying machines, which takes place in over 20 cities across the world. The London event attracted 40 teams, narrowed down from thousands of designs and plans originally submitted, and involved contestants launching their homemade machines off a 6 metre high ramp into the Serpentine, cheered on by enthusiastic onlookers and watched by ITV viewers.

The Harlesden-based Miss Piggy team, in the person of captain Tim Simpson, approached HMG Paints earlier in the year, having bought a can of its clear cellulose dope in a local model shop. Needing to apply several coats to over 70 square metres of canvas wings, Tim enquired whether HMG could help with some free product. Ever keen to assist in pushing back the barriers of manned flight, in line with its long-term involvement in the Starchaser project, HMG agreed to the request and offered quantities of its solvent-free LMP synthetic toy enamel as well, for painting the timber and polystyrene structure in suitably gaudy colours.

Piloted by ex-BA air stewardess Becs Hurran in a Kermit the Frog costume and propelled by fellow team members, Alex Hurran, John Brown, Joss Peach and captain Tim, Miss Piggy made a big impact at the Hyde Park Flugtag – not least because they also fired a 21 chicken salute from an organ-style cannon, to the sounds of The Blue Danube. They scored a maximum 10 for creativity, 9.9 for their spirited performance of the Chicken Symphony, a massive 79% on the audience clapometer and a slightly less awe-inspiring 4.6 metres in actual flight.

This proved to be the winning score for Team Miss Piggy, picking up £5,000 in cash and beating off the challenges of Flop Gun, Flying Elvis, Senor Frogriguez, Shakin’ Bacon, The Red Barrows, Terry Dactyl and other assembled loonies …. er intrepid birdmen. For HMG, it was yet further proof of the aerodynamic qualities of its high performance paints – it’s just a shame Concorde has been grounded.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com

Independent British paintmaker, HMG Paints of Manchester has introduced an advanced, high build primer, Rapidbuild, for commercial transport and automotive applications. Also suitable for marine and high quality equipment finishing, it can be used as the first choice primer/filler under all HMG 2-pack topcoat systems and other proprietary finishes.

Offering outstanding corrosion and impact resistance, Rapidbuild 2K Primer has been formulated for extremely fast drying and easy sanding, leading to quicker process times and reduced consumption of sanding materials. It is touch dry in just 5 minutes and fully hard in 4-6 hours if air dried, in 30 minutes at 70ºC and less than 10 minutes using IR drying equipment. It is regarded as a high performance replacement for HMG’s popular MPS 4+1 primer, although this product is still available where slower drying times are acceptable. Far easier to flat than MPS and other primers, new Rapidbuild is also suitable for modern dry sanding methods.

After appropriate surface preparation, Rapidbuild can be readily spray applied, with a short ‘flash off’ between coats, although for small and medium-sized areas it can be painted on with a brush or roller, requiring less masking and eliminating overspray problems. Mixed at a ratio of 4:1 with the curing agent, it can be used in conjunction with HMG’s standard 9004 Hardener or, for spot repairs, panels and extremely cold working conditions, with its Wintermix Hardener for even faster curing times.

Rapidbuild is thinned with HMG’s Acrythane range of thinners, to suit the ‘wet edge’ time required, and used as either a high build filler or, at lower concentrations, as a smooth surfacer over previously primed or painted substrates. It can be used as part of a wet-on-wet finishing system, allowing the primer to become touch dry before applying the topcoat.

Available in 5 litre cans only in standard grey/buff, Rapidbuild is ideal for CT finishing and refinishing, including trucks, buses and coaches, automotive bodyshops, stock body protection by vehicle manufacturers and many marine applications, as well as machinery and equipment finishing. It is available direct from the company or through HMG’s approved CT distributors.

Further enquiries to:

HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com

Press Contact David Gent Creative
Tel 01706 220388
Fax 01706 215849
email david@davidgent.com