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The completed spray patcher truck side-on in the workshop at pre-delivery — Testing the completed truck at pre-delivery.

Industrial experience at Transpave

Industrial placement · Transpave, Minto NSW · Nov 2025 – Feb 2026

My industrial placement was on the production floor at Transpave, who design and build bitumen tack coaters and other road maintenance trucks for contractors and councils. It was 60 working days, full-time and unpaid, in a small crew of a welder, a fitter, the head engineer and me.

Building a truck

The main job was building the trucks. Each one starts as a bare Isuzu cab-chassis. The head engineer designs the body in CAD, parts come back from the laser cutter, and the crew bends, welds and fits them onto a subframe that bolts to the chassis. I worked across all of it, mostly alongside the fitter: the press brake, band saw and mag drill, riveting, and fitting subassemblies to the frame.

A bare Isuzu cab-chassis outside the workshop — A few weeks in: the bare chassis outside, stripped of what wasn't needed, with the rest repositioned before it went inside.

A steel subassembly modelled in CAD on a workshop monitor — The head engineer's CAD model of a subassembly. Parts go from here to the laser cutter.

The CNC press brake with its control terminal — The CNC press brake and its control terminal.

Steel plates on the bed of a CNC press brake — CNC press brake in operation, bending steel sheet components.

Box section being cut on the band saw — Band saw, cutting box section for the subframe.

Magnetic drill press set up on a C-beam section on the workshop floor — Magnetic drill press, drilling C-beam sections.

The unpainted blue subframe with subassemblies dry fitted on top — The unpainted subframe with the subassemblies dry fitted on top.

Subassemblies strapped up in the paint booth — The paint booth. Smaller subassemblies come off the truck after dry fitting and go in for paint.

The welded spray bar frame subassembly on the workshop floor — The spray bar frame, with a channel at the bottom for the sliding bar.

A forklift carrying the painted lower spray bar — The forklift carrying the painted lower spray bar.

Then came the fit-out: hydraulic plumbing and hose crimping, 12 V wiring and lighting, and the tanks, pumps and equipment.

A pump bolted to a blue chassis rail with tools beside it — A pump mounted on the frame beside the tank, before plumbing.

Hydraulic fluid being pumped into the hydraulic pump reservoir — Pumping hydraulic fluid into the pump reservoir.

Hydraulic hose and fittings from the hose reel on unpainted checker plate during a test fit, an impact driver beside it — Test fitting the hose reel on the unpainted checker plate: position it, mark the holes, drill, then mount it.

The original rear lighting harness and bumper, removed from the base chassis and laid out on the workshop floor — The original rear harness and bumper, off the base chassis. The truck gets custom ones, but we kept the original intact so we could copy its wiring.

Colour-coded crimp connectors joining the wired controller to the hydraulic pump wiring on the truck frame — Connecting the wired controller to the hydraulic pumps for the tipper (up, down) and tailgate (close, open).

The rear underside of the truck before the tipper and hydraulics — Rear of the truck before the tipper and hydraulics were mounted.

Finished rear with tail lights and do-not-overtake signage — The same end after the LED installation.

Orange aluminium stair assembly mounted on the side of a completed truck — Aluminium stair assembly mounted on the completed truck.

A white pressurised bitumen emulsion tank with a caution sticker and a hose reel — The bitumen emulsion tank and hose reel on a finished unit.

The side of a white truck body with water containers, brackets and a locker fitted — Containers, brackets and a locker fitted to the body.

A black tank and red pump on a steel frame, a finished subassembly — Shipping off a completed bitumen spray and tank subassembly.

Side jobs

Between trucks the shop took on other work, from small laser-cut parts to cutting universal beams to length for a Western Harbour Tunnel subcontract.

A delivery of universal steel beams on the workshop floor — Universal beams delivered, before cutting, for the Western Harbour Tunnel subcontract.

Cut beams being loaded onto pallets — Loading the cut beams onto pallets after the band saw.

Palletised beams ready for delivery — Palletised and ready to go.

A large aluminium roof panel mid-assembly with tools resting on it — Riveting aluminium sheet assemblies with C-channel reinforcement.

A finished Transpave truck back in the workshop for repairs — A finished truck back in for adjustments.

What I took from it

The biggest thing was seeing how much of the engineering happens at assembly. You build to a drawing, it doesn't go together, and you work out with the crew whether it's the drawing, the part or the order of operations. I already knew what springback was, but this was the first time I saw how much it matters in practice. A part bent a few degrees out gets hammered or cut into place at assembly, while a properly bent one makes the welder's job quicker and easier. I also learned to dry fit before committing to anything, and that the paint finish is the first thing a customer judges a truck by. I'll carry all of that into my own designs.

At the end they offered me a full-time paid position doing the same work, which I turned down. The first two-thirds of the placement were all learning, but by the last few weeks it was mostly assembly and fitting with nothing new to solve. I'd got what I came for, and it made clear what I want next: a role where the engineering is the job.

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LinkedIn: in/jeremy-alec-osborne
Based in: Sydney, NSW