Chris Sayer
SAYER, Christopher, BEng MIAust (1948- )
Christopher Sayer is an Australian mechanical Engineer whose career has spanned over four decades marked by significant contributions to manufacturing, engineering innovation and technical leadership across a diverse range of industries.
Born to Joan and Frank Sayer in 1948, he was raised in Victoria. He was educated at St Bedes’s College, Mentone from where he matriculated in 1965. His academic excellence earned him a tertiary scholarship.
He commenced his engineering studies at University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1966 and graduated in 1969. During this period he became a Cadet Engineer with the Commonwealth Department of Supply. During two Christmas vacations (1967 and 1968) he gained early experience at the Footscray Ammunition Factory where he observed activities in the brass foundry, brass rolling mill, case shops, tool room, and metrology laboratory. He also spent some time on the tools in the apprentice workshop. These experiences laid a strong foundation for his future engineering career.
Upon graduation from UWA in 1969, Sayer moved to Melbourne with his new wife, Susan _________, and joined the Ammunition Factory full-time, initially in the tool room and later in the maintenance section. He gained deeper knowledge of the complex processes involved in high volume manufacturing of ammunition. These included a brass foundry with induction furnaces, a brass rolling mill, annealing furnaces, stamping and drawing of blanks, machining on multi-spindle lathes, high speed assembly of small arms ammunition, fine blanking of clockwork components of fuses. There were also support processes such as the tool room, metrology laboratory, electro-plating plant, chemical laboratory, statistical process controls, and the boiler house.
In 1970, Sayer joined Robert Bosch (Australia) at Clayton where he started as a cadet engineer. For the next 12 months he spent time in the production workshop, drawing and standards office, and the tool design office. He moved to the physical laboratory of the production inspection department where he conducted electrical and mechanical testing of a variety of products, including automotive alternators, starter motors, distributors, ignition coils, power diodes, and electric power tools. He was involved in statistical quality control and work study to improve efficiency. He observed high volume manufacture processes, including cam lathes, high speed stamping, balancing of armatures, induction hardening, assembly line operations.
In 1973 Sayer moved back to Perth and joined Westralian Transformers in Osborne Park where the firm made high voltage power and distribution transformers as well as pole-top switch gear and fuses. The processes involved steel lamination stamping, controlled atmosphere annealing, coil winding, oven drying, cooling fin assembly, and transformer tank manufacture. Sayer eventually became involved with testing of fans, strength calculations of tank walls (subjected to vacuum during assembly), electric, magnetic and mechanical design of distribution transformers, and thermosiphon cooling of a large city substation. He was also involved with high voltage testing of drop-out fuses and assembly of switch gear.
From late 1977 till 1981, Sayer joined Westralian Equipment, a related company, and Nova Machinery where they made agricultural equipment (rippers, scrub rakes, mole ploughs, seeders) and metal working machinery (press brakes, guillotines, hydraulic presses). He was in charge of the drawing and design office. During this period, his engineering achievements included innovative solutions to beam deflection, shesr calculations for guillotines, hydraulic circuit design, electrical control circuits, press brake tooling, troubleshooting customer problems. Some outstanding designs included a 1000 tonne capacity hydraulic press brake with a high pressure Swiss balance valve, a 25 mm (250 tonne) guillotine, and 200 tonne presses for white goods manufacturers.
From 1981 until 2002, Sayer worked at Orbital Engine Company (OEC) at Balcatta. This was a significant new chapter in his career. The company was originally involved in the development of a novel engine concept that consisted of a 7 sided piston that orbited around the drive shaft and radially arranged combustion chambers that were sealed by vanes. He worked with design office on engine re-design, crankshaft, journal bearings, slipper bearings, vanes, valve cam geometry. After failing to adequately control oil sealing and increasing complexity, the company changed focus to fuel injection, mainly pneumatic assisted. Sayer designed several small high speed air compressors with a novel flapper valve design. He was involved with design of high speed DC solenoid valves, a 3-cylinder 2-stroke automotive engine with direct fuel injection, split roller bearing races, a harmonic balancer, and a front end accessory drive. He also contributed to the design of engine components appropriate for high volume manufacturing (powder metallurgy, fine blanking, stamping, drawing, casting). His international experience included technical support at Walbro in Cass City, Michigan, and OEC’s branch in Tekumseh and also with Daimler Benz in Stuttgart. His experiences included a three week stay in Moscow with Venture, ZIL and NAMI, working on a 3 cylinder engine. OEC has now specializeddeveloped special engines for drones.
After leaving OEC in 2002, he joined the Orontide Group (known as Madco at that time). This company provided services to the mining and mineral processing industries. Sayer established a design office and introduced the SolidWorks 3D CAD system. He supervised 2 draftspersons and 1 engineer. He provided engineering support for planners, workshops and clients. Some of the design projects he undertook included several large (2.2m) butterfly valves, and a replacement for a worn cast pump casting with a 904L fabricated casing. He oversaw manufacturing and testing of mining skips, designed skip discharge chutes, designed several 21m^3 air receivers, designed and manufactured malt barley rake (7m long) with variable speed drive, designed extensive machine guards for bottling plant, designed and built a facility to test skip jack-catchers (involving a 16m/s trolley on a 40 m track with water brake), designed and built a rod loader to eliminate manual handling of drill pipes on drill rigs, plus much more.
He left Orontide in 2012 to retire and shortly after commenced part time work at The University of Western Australia helping to provide final year mechanical engineering students with industrially relevant design skills. He shared his varied experiences with students in their design projects and continued to perform a number of design consulting projects as well. He continued teaching until 2025.
Editor: James Trevelyan
References
Personal communication, Christopher Sayer, June 2025
Christopher Sayer CV, June 2024
