STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

A new crank for the Albion Shed engine in Earby being bored at Brown and Pickles. Newton once told me that he was always suspicious of cranks on old engines. This stemmed from the time when he was hating a crank on an old engine to get the crank pin out ready for a replacement when the top end of the crank cracked and fell off! Even Newton hadn't realised that the crank was cast iron. He reckoned that when they built the engine originally at the start of the Great War, the forged crank they had ordered never turned up and to complete the contract they cast one. This could be true because at that time many of the big forgings for cranks and shafts came from Krupps at Essen who were one of the first firms to take advantage of the 'new' Bessemer Steel. He said that Roberts at Nelson were customers of Krupps at one time.

[Stanley]

The new shaft and crank for Albion Shed in the Wellhouse shop of Brown and Pickles ready to go down to Earby for installation. The reason for the renewal was a small crack in the shaft, Miss Crowther, the owner of the mill, commissioned a new shaft, told Newton to make a new crank at the same time and never asked the price because she trusted the firm. That doesn't happen these days....

[Stanley]

Worth mentioning that at that time in the 1950s insurance companies were looking much more carefully for potential cracks in shafts. There were quite a few serious breakages at the time and Johnny said as early as 1930 that Newton should always be careful when inspecting engines as many of them were being run at far higher duties than originally built for. Cylinders were replaced, steam pressure and speeds increased, all in the pursuit of more power, however, flywheel shafts were never improved and many failed.

[Stanley]

The shaft at Wellhouse broke in 1955. Wellhouse engine fly shaft on the planer at Wellhouse Shop. Date on Picture is 1957 but NP and SCG worked it out at about 1955. Left to right, Charlie Bateman, Harry Crabtree, Brian Smith, Sidney Brown, Roland Harrison.

[Stanley]

B&P heavy gang replacing the broken shaft. Johnny in the bowler, Newton just in front of him wearing a cloth cap.

[Stanley]

At Victoria Mill in Earby the engine had been modified so much and the size of the sheds expanded that they had to run the engine slowly on the barring engine before they actually started to overcome the 'stiction' in the cold shafting bearings. If they hadn't done this there was a danger of the engine shearing the crank pin on the first stroke.

[Stanley]

The Victoria Mill shaft broke at about the same time.....

[Stanley]

At about the same time the engine at Calf Hall Shed failed for the same reason, it's output had been raised to cope with expansion by raising boiler pressure and putting bigger cylinders in. It knocked the crank pin off and had to have a new crosshead and a bigger crank pin.



Burnley Ironworks drawing of the original engine.

[Stanley]

The old engineering drawings were works of art and often used for selling engines. They used blueprints as well for the shop floor.

[Stanley]

BI shop in 1917.

[Stanley]

The above pic is of historical interest in that there was a tremendous push to increase shell production in the Great War after the government found that the Army's estimates of the number of shells needed was woefully inadequate. All the lathes in the foreground are specialist shell turning machines. Almost everyone was dragged in to make the lathes, here's Johnny with one of the lathes made in Barlick.



Note on back of pic reads: '17 ton, 9.5 inch shell turning lathe made by J A Pickles and Co.' This suggests it was made before the firm became H Brown Sons and Pickles. It's belt driven so this supports an early date. A later pic shows another shell lathe and describes it as 'First shell lathe 1940' so this was actually made by HBSP.

[Stanley]

Looking at that image I reflect that I doubt if we have a small firm in Barlick that could make something like that... Possibly Gissings if they had plenty of support....

[Stanley]

One of the things that struck me about running the Bancroft engine in the 1970s was that the management showed no interest in close monitoring of the steam raising plant and engine. The only instrumentation we had was the pressure gauge on the boiler and the pressure, vacuum and differential gauges on the engine. My suggestions that we should monitor CO in the flue gas, chimney bottom temperatures, draught and lineshaft speed were totally ignored. We did what we could but were hampered. As far as the management were concerned the plant was like an electric motor, it did what it did and that was it. As far as I could ascertain this was a general attitude in most of the old mills.

[Stanley]

For many years, while coal was plentiful and cheap the same philosophy was applied to steam generation in that water treatment was not understood. Many mills had to blow down their boilers every week and wash them out with consequent waste of time and coal. With proper water treatment and constant monitoring the boiler at Bancroft gradually reduced scale load on heating surfaces and was only blown down three times a year at flueing time.

[Stanley]

Charlie Southwell, my feed-water man testing Bancroft boiler water in 1977. He used to call every month, I suspect this was not normal service, he just enjoyed the engine and visiting me. The treatment was very effective. Nice man, died young after retiring early. A great shame.... He had a Mazda car with the Wankel engine in it, a rarity in those days.

[Stanley]

Charlie once took me on a trip out to a colliery during the holiday. They had a major problem, the water in their Lancashire boilers was like porridge despite daily blow down. While Charlie was doing his thing in the office I went for a furtle and when he came out I took him down the fields below the ;pit head and showed him where the blow-down main crossed the dam supplying water to the boilers via a pump. The main was broken completely. As fast as they blew sludge out of the boilers it was mixed with the feed water and recycled. This was under the NCB and a good example of how bad supervision can negate all the scientific improvements. I got a vote of thanks from Charlie and a free lunch!
At Bancroft we cheated. I had an un-metered connection to the water main (before my time) and used mains water for all top up and boiler filling.

[chinatyke]

He had a Mazda car with the Wankel engine in it, a rarity in those days.

Now there is an idea for your next project...

[Stanley]

Dream on China! I got an insight into the problems of rotary engines when I was at REW and was often asked to refurbish the rotary air motors in power arms for expanding tackle. They had eccentric chambers and loose plastic vanes... They were a bit of a puzzle! I didn't always get them right the first time.

[Stanley]

One of the few rotary steam prime movers installed in mills. The Parson's turbine at Elk in 1927.

[Bodger]

I remeber being in Arrowscroft mil Hollingworth, it had a Parsons turbine driving through a reduction gearbox, the place was like a palace, paintwork, copper, brass all gleaming, you could have eaten your snap off the floor

[Bodger]

Stanley if your "glimmers"allow you, have a look at this link, some great drawings at the bottom, double click on them to enlarge

[Stanley]

I started to look at them Bodge but had to stop myself! I could pore over that all day!

[Stanley]

Click for large image. John Burlison sent me this example of Frank Wightman's engine drawings.

[Stanley]

Another Wightman drawing from John Burlison.

[chinatyke]

Wow, that drawing has lots of detail. Look at the height of the person shown next to the boiler house. Amazing things. Interesting to see they reduced the load on the engine in 1902/3 by installing 2 electric dc motors. Who would lubricate the shafting bearings and gears, I assume the engine tenter didn't do that?