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6 July 2015

Micrometric writes the names of the fallen aircrew from Bomber County

The geography of Lincolnshire, sometimes known as Bomber County, has made it an ideal location for military airfields, and during WW2 it was the epicentre of Bomber Command with numerous airfields being sited in Lincolnshire. Micrometric, based in Lincoln, is extremely proud to have been chosen to provide precision laser cutting for the Spire Memorial which will be sited on Canwick Hill on the outskirts of Lincoln to commemorate the fallen aircrew who fought and died from the airfields around Lincoln.

Surrounding the Spire Memorial will be 120 plates on the curved memorial walls, which are to carry the names of the 25,611 men who flew and died from airfields around Lincoln. In total there were 55,573 lives lost from Bomber Command, with 28% of them coming from countries outside the UK. The plates are to be made from “CorTen A”, a type of steel designed to weather over time and provide a rusted appearance. Each plate is 4 mm thick and will take around 6 hours of laser cutting time on the machines at Micrometric. Laser cutting is a precise method of cutting through metals and other materials with low heat input and a fine cutting line, using a machine capable of handling large sheet sizes and cutting through over 12 mm thickness of material.

In total there will be more than 250,000 letters cut out by laser – the plates are produced in flat material for laser cutting, they are then sent to another local company, Hindles of Lincoln, for deburring and bending to the correct curvature to allow them to be mounted onto the walls.


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