PEN TESTING

Filled it this morning, after cleaning even more cruft from inside the barrel. Section is in place in the barrel and holding without glue, which is preferred.Fairly bold nib, somewhat flexible. So far, so good. But I am storing it vertically, nib up, just in case.

(Still working to get my Palmer Method cursive up to spec -- and then it's on to Spencerian! BTW, the radiogram form is a reproduction).

OF PENS AND SUCH

What you see is evidence of an experiment in progress; come the morrow, I'll be finding out. First: the instrument, as found, after cleaning, soaking, disassembly and removal of nasty-crunchy bits of old internals, shown along with some parts and supplies. Yes, the ink reservoir -- the sac, as 'tis known to the trade - had perished. Thanks to a pair of dedicated and loopy-in-a-good-way enthusiasts, this isn't a total disaster. You can still get the parts.

Section and sac assembled, waiting for the Secret Mystery Glue (clear shellac or nail polish) to dry: This was an inexpensive pen when it was new; I picked it up with another pen (an Eversharp "Zenith" with a mixmaster cap, in fair working shape) at $14 and change for the pair. For having even an inkling of how to go about fixing the non-working one, all thanks to Da Book!

This is one of those rare, hands-on, essential texts, like W. R. Smith's How To Restore Telegraph Keys, Horowitz and Hill's The Art Of Electronics or anything by Frank C. Jones or Patrick S. Finnegan. If you're going to do much with fountain pens -- or stylographic pens* -- you need a copy.

Of course, it helps to have a backup, in this case a shiny-new pen. I don't know why I'd never purchased a Lamy. They make a full line and their inexpensive pens are an especially good value; this one has a nice feel in the hand and on the paper. The clip's distinctive and should hold up. (I'm running a converter filled with Noodler's black ink, the latter having been highly recommended by Marko and received good mention elsewhere).It's a clear "demonstrator." I have a real fondness for them.
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* Don't know what they are? See, that's why you need Da Book.

I WENT TO THE RADIO SWAPMEET AND I GOT A BOOK ABOUT STEAM

I got radio parts too; but this kind of thing happens to me a lot -- it helps to be eclectic.

That book is pretty fascinating stuff (updated, it remains in print!) and Babcock and Wilcox is not just another rustbelt industry vanished in the mists of a previous time; they are very much still around and about as modern as next week. At the time this book was published, their little Boiler Division plant in Mt. Vernon, IN had not yet been completed; now it's rather vast and in another division altogether.

Nevertheless, a pressure vessel is a pressure vessel and steam power is the same, no matter how it's generated and they've been good at both for a very long time -- which is probably why they got tapped for this project:Yes, it says "World's first nuclear-powered merchant ship" and no, it's not some artist's-conception dream, either. It sailed, er, steamed. Intended more as proof-of-concept and designed to look good in the doing, it never turned the profit a conventionally-driven freighter of like size would have. Withal, the power plant ran without trouble, unless you count the time it shut down, automatically and safely, in heavy seas -- exactly as it was designed to.

There have been four reactor-driven freighters, only one of which remains in service; in addition to the U.S., Japan, Germany and the former Soviet Union built them. The biggest issue appears to be the need for additional crew training and a few more specialists, along with some dedicated service vessels. Reactor waste was a particular challenge early on. NS Savannah -- named after the first steamship to cross the Atlantic -- came to the end of her working days in 1972 and spent a few years as a floating museum exhibit. Presently in the process of having her reactor decommissioned, with a bit of luck she will emerge from the process as a museum ship again.

You may wonder, "is this retrotechnology?" I believe it is. To a very great extent, modern civilization continues to run on steam. Much of it is still produced by burning coal in boilers that, other than scale, would not be terribly unfamiliar to men who designed and built the SS Savannah's boilers around 1818. Even NS Savannah's reactor has become, at the age of 50, "retro."

Will we see her like again soon? Possibly not. Between real fears of proliferation or piracy and irrational ones about the power plant itself, probably not. On the other hand, the Russians are still running a handful of atomic icebreakers; so don't write it off just yet.

BIG STEAM

It looks like a cross between a castle and a mechanical spider; if I had been shown an uncaptioned picture, I would have been convinced it was a movie prop.

But it's real: Cruquius, the largest single-cylinder steam engine ever built, a Cornish Engine far from Cornwall. And it's big: the primary piston is 144" in diameter. On the official site, there's a page with a video that follows a reporter inside the main cylinder.

Restored but not under steam (the boilers are long gone), nowadays, the engine is moved by hydraulics; but move it does and it's an image you're not likely to forget.

What did it do for a living? Why, it helped drain the Netherlands!

INDIANA HISTORICAL RADIO SOCIETY SPRING MEET

It's next weekend! The IHRS Spring Meet: April 30 - May 1, 2010 at the Kokomo Event Center, located at 1500 North Reed Road (US 31) in (where else) Kokomo, IN. Friday April 30 - 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm; Saturday May 1 - 7:00 am to 2:00 pm. Plenty of indoor Radio Swap and Sell space. Vintage radio contests. Radio operation and repair seminars.

Fees -- General admission is free. One Swap N Sell space for the sale and trade of vintage radio equipment is $15.00 for IHRS members, $20.00 for non-members, good for both days (the space includes one eight foot table.)

I have missed the last couple of IHRS meetings. The Winter one was cancelled by a snowstorm! So I'm really hoping to get to this one.

WORTHINGTON TRIPLES

It's not a baseball report. It's something that staggers the imagination. Let's say you needed a prime mover for a waterworks -- a really large waterworks, 19 million gallons a day -- and let's say it's 1926 and you live in a country with a lot of coal and a strong engineering tradition. And let's say you wanted it utterly reliable.

Of course you'd build a matched pair of 62-foot tall, 1000-bhp, triple-expansion steam engines atop directly-driven piston pumps, wouldn't you? The Brits did -- and at the time, the mammoth installation really was the best choice.*

But it is stunning. Staggering. All the more when you consider the pair of engines remained in service until 1980! And why not; they worked.

Best of all, after the engines were honorably retired, steam enthusiasts adopted them! It took a new boiler and an enormous effort, but one of the engines runs again, under steam -- and yes, they have public demonstrations.

I have been a big admirer of steam enthusiasts ever since I met the crew who rescued the old locomotive from Broad Ripple Park; but this effort is on a truly heroic scale.

...And in a few days, I'll link to another engine, earlier but just as ambitious and built, in its unique way, in a similar scale.
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*This was to change, soon after -- and they followed the technology, as you'll see.

MR. TOWER'S SPHERICAL STEAM ENGINE

No, it's not the title of a fanciful novel; it's a real thing, a sort of 3-D Wankel engine and if the site describing it didn't have a cutaway animation, I would still be puzzling over the drawings. How about 2.5 bhp at 500 RPM from a four-inch sphere? Inside, two quarter-spheres and a disc, assembled in a sort of universal joint and driven by steam -- we should not be surprised that the same man who conceived it was the first to puzzle out hydrodynamic lubrication (and not the hard way like most of us did, on bad tires in the rain).

Long ago, these little engines were used (per my sources, especially on British merchant ships) to spin dynamos, since they didn't need gearing. Turbines eventually took over that job, leaving Beauchamp Tower's fascinating engine an historical footnote. But what a footnote!

Another link, good in August, 2010: External view and description.