Waveguides made by John Dye
One of John's bath's now working flat out at TK
Our very long standing colleague, John Dye of Waveform (Electroforming) Ltd is passing his
microwave electroforming business to us, and is releasing the following letter to his customers.
We have huge respect for John and the work he has done for us and others and we hope to
be able (and it will be quite a challenge) to follow in his footsteps.
www.electroform.com
As you will be aware I passed retirement age a few years ago and now Roy, who has been
with Waveform since I established the company back in 1988, has also reached retirement
age and will soon be off to Cephalonia to spend time in the sun. I have therefore taken the
decision to transit to full retirement over the next 12 months.
Recognising that our customers have long term needs Waveform has been collaborating with
Thomas Keating Ltd (TK) on the transfer of the technology of electroforming waveguide
components to their base in West Sussex. We have and will continue to provide support
and advice to the TK team. TK wish to maintain and grow the business of making of electroformed
waveguide components. They look forward to developing the relationship that Waveform and its
customers have enjoyed over the last two decades.
Waveform has been successfully trading with Thomas Keating Ltd (TK) for over two decades and
we have built up a strong technical collaboration with them – which has resulted in many technical
successes: a recent example was the joint development and manufacture of the antennas for the
HFI Instrument on the ESA Planck mission – much in the news recently.
Thomas Keating is an old family business – whose origins go back to the 1780’s – which combines
precision toolmaking with a growing THz Instrumentation business. Along with its sister company QMC
Instruments it employs about 40 people, it is profitable and financially stable. Last year it won a Queens
Award for Export achievements and sells instruments and components across the world. Details can be
found on their website.
TK is fully ISO9001-2008 Part 1 qualified and does a significant amount of space hardware design and
manufacture.
TK has appointed Simon Croucher, who also has technical selling experience, to be the “hands-on manager” of
the business. By hands on – they mean that he will be combining actual production, which often requires
accurate machining, with customer liaison – both by modern electronic means, and face-to-face meetings. He
will join Brian Still, also a skilled technician, who has being running (under our supervision) a small electroforming
section in TK’s new factory in Billingshurst for a number of years.
Along with the full compliment of TK’s Directors and staff, TK has also appointed John Sherbourne,
a chemist with long experience of the plating business to provide “chemical” support and advice to the
enterprise.
We will complete any current work we have for you and will invoice you in the normal way. Only new
work will be performed at TK and invoiced from Billingshurst. Unless you instruct otherwise we will
transfer any mandrels & jigs that you own that we have here in Norwich for safekeeping to Billingshurst
so that TK can make use of them for future order.
It will be sad to leave the day-to-day management of the business and my contact with you but will (and
have contracted to!) supply TK with advice and help over the future so that the enterprise that I built up
can continue to provide you with the services you need.
Please feel free to contact me or Dr. Richard Wylde (details below) at TK to discuss this change
Yours sincerely
John Dye
Dr Richard Wylde - Managing Director
Michael Clack –Works Director
Simon Croucher - Electroforming Manager