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Author: Subject: Those Victorians Couldn't Half Make An Engine..
Litemoth

posted on 5/4/13 at 08:42 PM Reply With Quote
Those Victorians Couldn't Half Make An Engine..

Blimey... what a piece of engineering.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmws5Oa0Jxo

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r1_pete

posted on 5/4/13 at 08:57 PM Reply With Quote
Those round tooth gears in the early part of the vid wouldn't take any prisoners
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SteveWalker

posted on 5/4/13 at 08:57 PM Reply With Quote
This one's pretty good too Reversible engine for a rolling mill
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richardm6994

posted on 5/4/13 at 09:19 PM Reply With Quote
Sorry....I saw steam engines and thought I'd add...

My wife on my mine....


My wife on my dads...


She's my kinda woman!!

Let's just say my spanner set goes waaaaayyyy past 19mm!

And one other thing...rebel (first photo) was 100years old last July! I bet she's still going long after I've gone! That proper engineering for ya!

[Edited on 5/4/13 by richardm6994]






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bob

posted on 5/4/13 at 09:24 PM Reply With Quote
Is that Dorset steam fair ?

Love it there......when its dry!!

The Kempton pump house is only a couple of miles up the road from me, it is impressive sadly only steams up a few times a year for the public.
At the end of the film the guy on the right was my sons headmaster at his junior school,nice bloke.

[Edited on 5/4/13 by bob]






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richardm6994

posted on 5/4/13 at 09:35 PM Reply With Quote
No...it's hollowell nr Northampton.






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Mr Whippy

posted on 6/4/13 at 12:12 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Litemoth
Blimey... what a piece of engineering.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmws5Oa0Jxo


And all that just to make an everlasting gobstopper...

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A1

posted on 6/4/13 at 06:23 AM Reply With Quote
We can still do it!



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Peteff

posted on 6/4/13 at 08:26 AM Reply With Quote
We went to Papplewick on a steam day to look at the beam engine running and pumping. It was a really good day and the engine is a sight to behold, almost silent in operation.





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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Dangle_kt

posted on 6/4/13 at 08:30 AM Reply With Quote
Isn't that a Pinto?
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Litemoth

posted on 6/4/13 at 11:01 AM Reply With Quote
We can just about still make things but notice the care taken to make the Victorian machinery last and whilst not fancy, is a thing of pride and a thing of beauty...It has really nice castings and curves (steady!) It's had a working life and it's still going well and housed in a fantastic 'civic' building (not built and costed down to a price).

We're still going through Victorian tunnels and across their bridges, on their roads and railways...it's amazing.


quote:
Originally posted by A1
We can still do it!




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Litemoth

posted on 6/4/13 at 11:04 AM Reply With Quote
Guffaw ...there are a few wonkas wandering about there...


quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy

And all that just to make an everlasting gobstopper...

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Litemoth

posted on 6/4/13 at 11:11 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by SteveWalker
This one's pretty good too Reversible engine for a rolling mill


Some serious metal moving there and it reverses almost instantly...the forces must be enormous...very impressive stuff.

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richardm6994

posted on 6/4/13 at 11:29 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by A1
We can still do it!





Im sorry but in my opinion this doesnt even come close. How many computers and cnc machines do you suppose it took to produce that? I'm not saying moving forward in engineering is a bad thing but I doubt that will still be running strong in 100+ years time!

I am always in awe at the fact that these giant steam machines were hand made by man.....not even a digitalcaliper in sight!!! These kind of skills and machinery tneeded to make such massive components has almost completely vanished and IMO the designers & engineers who built these should be looked upon with the utmost respect.

I'm lucky in the fact I've got two traction engines which I've grown up with and this kind of thing is normal to me....but when the RHOCAR lads had a play with the engines at last years hollowell rally their appreciation for this kind of engineering grew beyond their expectations.

[Edited on 6/4/13 by richardm6994]

[Edited on 6/4/13 by richardm6994]






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Litemoth

posted on 6/4/13 at 12:14 PM Reply With Quote
The fact is, we're poor at engineering nowadays. Government doesn't support manufacturing and engineering and parents don't want their kids to be engineers. We can innovate but can't make.

We patch up St Pancras station and say what a great job the Brits make of things but we nearly knocked down and put up something horrible and cheap in concrete to replace it and couldn't build a modern 'equivalent' without employing a foreign firm to build it for us.

rant over..


Interesting article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/08/ james-dyson-engineering-britain-railways

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Not Anumber

posted on 6/4/13 at 03:31 PM Reply With Quote
Interesting article and James Dyson is certainly an inventor of some note but I cant help thinking that he has long ago gone over to the dark side.
I'm afraid I cant take someone who gets plastic vacuum cleaners made in China and just packed in Britain entirely seriously. Not exactly a man with steam and iron in his soul.






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britishtrident

posted on 6/4/13 at 03:51 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by A1
We can still do it!





We don't really design & produce properly big slow speed diesels anymore since William Doxford & Sons closed but, while we didn't really invent these but we are the best in the world at designing making them




[Edited on 6/4/13 by britishtrident]





[I] “ What use our work, Bennet, if we cannot care for those we love? .”
― From BBC TV/Amazon's Ripper Street.
[/I]

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A1

posted on 6/4/13 at 04:18 PM Reply With Quote
well, that ones been running for almost 30 years, so give it time... The problem will come when legislation stops these from running or poor maintenance, not necessarily bad design.
Im not dissing the steam engines, I think theyre great. theyre simple and work well and yes they were produced to a very high standard, but as with everything, as soon as accountants get involved quality is instantly secondary to cost. As is making things look nice. Im the first person to voice disappointment in the slapdash way we build houses,bridges etc nowadays and much prefer the old versions.
However, over 74000hp is bloody good engineering, to as high a standard as the steam engine. Just cause its built with computers and with more modern materials and techniques doesnt make it any less impressive. Just like the jet engine.
Plus, the manufacturers of that particular engine do operate in GB, along with germany and one or two other countries.

So I reiterate: We can still do it!

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bob

posted on 7/4/13 at 05:00 PM Reply With Quote
I will post up the next Kempton Museum steam up, might get a meet there






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Peteff

posted on 7/4/13 at 05:08 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Not Anumber
Interesting article and James Dyson is certainly an inventor of some note but I cant help thinking that he has long ago gone over to the dark side.


What did Dyson invent ? The cyclone in his vacuum cleaners was in use many years before he patented it, the factory I worked in had the system for removing waste from the machines 40 years ago. He is an innovater and entrepreneur though.





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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Not Anumber

posted on 7/4/13 at 05:22 PM Reply With Quote
He did invent the ball barrow 40 or so years ago.

For those who havent seen this it is very much like a wheelbarrow but with a ball in place of the front wheel to make it easier to push round corners without fear of overbalancing - not a barrow for the tackle of the exceptionally well endowed as some may have thought.






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Confused but excited.

posted on 7/4/13 at 06:09 PM Reply With Quote
Dyson 'invented' the ball barrow to use up the shed load of the balls left over from his boat design that flopped.
The cyclone dust extractor has been used in saw mills and timber yards since I was a sprog a looong time ago.
The only clever thing he did was to patent the application for use in a mobile (already used in static central vac systems) domestic vacuum cleaner.
The next clever thing he did, was to sack all the (200?) employees in the UK and move production to malaysia.
How much money does one man need?
Back to the Victorian engineers . . . . pure magic.





Tell them about the bent treacle edges!

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spiderman

posted on 7/4/13 at 10:39 PM Reply With Quote
Don't think the expression "over engineered" existed in Victorian times.





Spider

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coyoteboy

posted on 7/4/13 at 11:48 PM Reply With Quote
There's plenty of nonsense bandied about here. We are not useless at engineering these days, we are still bloody good and world leading in many areas, they just tend to be areas not "accessible" to public view. And plenty of foreign companies exist within the UK because they bought out our companies purely because they are so good.

And the nostalgic view of old engines is nice but they were nothing in comparison with modern engines and engineering. Engineering has progressed to the point where things might be less pretty (eye of the beholder I guess) but it is orders of magnitude more efficient, lighter, cheaper and more reliable. And it is nonsense to suggest we couldn't make something that lasts 100 years, of course we could, and make it pretty too, but it would be pointless because just like these engines they would be outdated, inefficient and quite frankly crap at the job they were intended to do when compared to a modern alternative.

If you want something that lasts forever and looks lovely, employ a sculptor. If you want something progressive and efficient that puts function before form you might want to pick one of the UKs thousands of highly skilled, world leading engineers.

Might sound like a bit of a rant but I'm a bit sick and tired of hearing nostalgic nonsense used to put our industry down.






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A1

posted on 8/4/13 at 05:39 AM Reply With Quote
thank you! my point exactly!
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