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!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
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.
______________________
*This was to change, soon after -- and they followed the technology, as you'll see.
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.
______________________
*This was to change, soon after -- and they followed the technology, as you'll see.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
THE PROPER WIRE
One of the frustrating parts of repairing older appliances is finding the right wire, especially power cord. Old ones very rarely survive in safe shape; most new ones look plain wrong.
For power cords, Sundial Wire has the answer. You've seen their work and haven't noticed it, in films and TV shows. They have very old-fashioned twisted-pair power cord...that just happens to be hiding modern insulation under the cloth.
Wiring up a classic radio or a telephone? Building retrotech from scratch? Check out the "Wire" listings under "Components" at Radio Daze; they have solid and stranded cloth-covered hookup wire in several sizes and many colors, including "pushback" solid, plus multiconductor cable and tinsel cord for telephone handsets, headphones and old-fashioned speakers. They have their own line of parallel-wire cloth-covered power cord and matching plugs, too.
Antique Electronics Supply has cloth-covered magnet wire in #24 and #26 size, plus Litz wire and cloth-covered hookup wire assortments, some power cord, cloth-type "spaghetti" insulating sleeving and #12 square tinned busbar.
Not Esoteric enough? Try the all-cotton-insulated wire at Jupiter Condenser Co. --And if you just have to have waxed-paper condensers, why, Jupiter's your only source of new ones, as far as I know. (The latter are not inexpensive but feature manufacturing techniques far superior to the old type; they've a line of modern Mylar fixed condensers as well). I have not done business with this company -- but they look interesting.
(Also stumbled over general-line/audiophile supplier Parts Connection, worth adding to your do-they-have-it? resources).
For power cords, Sundial Wire has the answer. You've seen their work and haven't noticed it, in films and TV shows. They have very old-fashioned twisted-pair power cord...that just happens to be hiding modern insulation under the cloth.
Wiring up a classic radio or a telephone? Building retrotech from scratch? Check out the "Wire" listings under "Components" at Radio Daze; they have solid and stranded cloth-covered hookup wire in several sizes and many colors, including "pushback" solid, plus multiconductor cable and tinsel cord for telephone handsets, headphones and old-fashioned speakers. They have their own line of parallel-wire cloth-covered power cord and matching plugs, too.
Antique Electronics Supply has cloth-covered magnet wire in #24 and #26 size, plus Litz wire and cloth-covered hookup wire assortments, some power cord, cloth-type "spaghetti" insulating sleeving and #12 square tinned busbar.
Not Esoteric enough? Try the all-cotton-insulated wire at Jupiter Condenser Co. --And if you just have to have waxed-paper condensers, why, Jupiter's your only source of new ones, as far as I know. (The latter are not inexpensive but feature manufacturing techniques far superior to the old type; they've a line of modern Mylar fixed condensers as well). I have not done business with this company -- but they look interesting.
(Also stumbled over general-line/audiophile supplier Parts Connection, worth adding to your do-they-have-it? resources).
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
WONDERFUL YANKEE
Sometimes, if you're looking in the right place, there are wondrous things to be found; some are very large, like the 1920s-designed city park in a quarry in Huntington, Indiana. Others are much smaller. My eagle-eyed friend Og found this and thought of me:
It's the smallest "professional" sized Yankee screwdriver, the smaller ones generally being sold as "handyman" versions and marketed more to homeowners and casual users. It's in very nice shape, with the original box and bit envelope, though no bits. --I make a habit of picking up Yankee bits when I find them (and the hex-bit adapters), so this is no hardship. This one does not have a return spring; it is intended for work where control matters more than speed. A splendid gift indeed, and one that I'll use.
It's the smallest "professional" sized Yankee screwdriver, the smaller ones generally being sold as "handyman" versions and marketed more to homeowners and casual users. It's in very nice shape, with the original box and bit envelope, though no bits. --I make a habit of picking up Yankee bits when I find them (and the hex-bit adapters), so this is no hardship. This one does not have a return spring; it is intended for work where control matters more than speed. A splendid gift indeed, and one that I'll use.
EYEGLASSES REPAIR
My favorite pair of glasses -- and the only ones with a current prescription -- broke awhile ago and I have been tacking them back together with Tix, a low-melting hard solder. Alas, the break was in a high-stress point, where the temple begins to curve around one's ear, and it wasn't holding.
There's a fix for that:
It helps to have the toys to do the job but the real key is that stick of what looks like brass rod at the center of the image. It's hollow tubing from world-famous Hedlund's Hardware (Motto: "We have it. Somewhere." It's true, too) A little flux, a little Tix heated by the big iron and taa-daa:
It's not beautiful but it doesn't show that much, either. And I'll be seeing the optometrist next week.
There's a fix for that:
It helps to have the toys to do the job but the real key is that stick of what looks like brass rod at the center of the image. It's hollow tubing from world-famous Hedlund's Hardware (Motto: "We have it. Somewhere." It's true, too) A little flux, a little Tix heated by the big iron and taa-daa:
It's not beautiful but it doesn't show that much, either. And I'll be seeing the optometrist next week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
