STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

New, more compact configurations like this Saxon Brothers Manhattan engine at Fox mill were popular. Very efficient and gave good service in smaller engine houses. Called Manhattan because they were first introduced in the US in NY to power generators for mains electricity.

[Stanley]

Other engine makers went in for strange configurations like this Spencer 3 rodder which is in effect doubled back on itself to save space.

[Stanley]

Possibly the most compact and efficient steam engines were totally enclosed engines like this Browett and Lindley pilot engine at Ellenroad. Belliss and Morcom were another major manufacturer. They were made in sizes up to over 100hp and had automatic lubrication at high speeds.

[Stanley]

Yates and Thom at Blackburn made engines with the minimum footprint. This inverted vertical twin tandem compound (1895) was perhaps the smallest they achieved.

[Stanley]

Engines like this one at Clover in Rochdale were at the opposite end of the scale. Like the chimney, the engine house of a mill built on a green field site where space was not a consideration, was seen by the owners as a statement about the firm and no expense (within reason!) was spared not only on the finish of the engine but on its house. There were many examples like this and one writer described them as 'Cathedrals of Power'. Exactly....

[Stanley]

Fancy mopping the tiles at Mons every morning?

[Stanley]

Slightly smaller scale but exactly the same construction and principles. A cast iron steam engine piston with plain cast iron rings. Gapped and sprung just like the early engines.

[Stanley]

I've solved my engine problem. All down to me fitting everything too tightly when I was doing the final erection. It struck me while I was doing it that I was going through exactly the same process that I followed when running the full sized engines. You start with a perceived problem, do a lot of listening and inspecting and finally come to a conclusion on which you can take action.
I once had a problem at Bancroft. Every now and then the HP cylinder would grunt and the whole engine house shivered. I got Newton up to give me a bit of advice and as he walked in the engine house shouting "What's up then Stanley!" it did it again and got his attention straight away. We decided it was safe to run till finishing time nut then Neston came up and we took the front lid of the cylinder. We picked that one because it already had a slight weep on the joint and we were going to fit a new graphited packing anyway. We found the problem. We were on a three day week at the time and I was leaving the warmer on when we were idle as the boiler still had steam. I always stopped the engine in the same place to aid starting and the steam passing through the gaps in the piston rings had washed all the cylinder oil out of the cast iron bore and a rust patch had gradually grown there which of course expanded and every now and again interfered with the rings. We polished the patch off with emery, oiled it and after that I let the engine stop wherever it wanted. A complete cure but typical of how these faults can arise, almost always a flaw in the management of the machine. Here we are fitting the new packing. Daniel Meadows took the pic.

[Stanley]

Keep an eye on Shed Matters for the next few weeks as I'm making a steam engine cylinder following exactly the same steps as the engine makers used when making the real thing. The source of my information is of course Newton Pickles who made cylinders up to 50" bore as replacements for worn out cylinders on full size engines. The best way to learn about engines is to make them!

[Stanley]

I've had iron castings on my mind over the last few days. The iron founders were essential to the steam engine building industry and were very innovative. All the castings for cylinders were big and complicated, many having internal voids for steam chests. One thing that struck me was that instead of following the usual practice of split moulds with risers and vents they favoured open top moulds where the cylinder was cast on end and the recess at the top of the mould gave a puddle of molten iron which acted as a reservoir for any dross floating to the top. As the mould was open they got a perfect filling of the voids with less chance of 'freezing' as the pour went on. When a casting was received at the shop the first thing was to cut the dummy head off the cylinder. I have no pictures of this but if you search the Newton Pickles transcripts in the LTP you'll find his description of this. Essentially it was just a big parting off job, turning an annular groove at the correct point and cutting until the dummy dropped off. Sometimes this mass of iron could weigh over a ton so it was a hazardous process. If the castings were steel this was done using oxyacetylene cutting.
Tatham's at Rochdale made carding engines which had very large then-walled iron walled cylinders. They cast these in a pit using a technique very similar to bell casting. A core was built up using a strickle and then the retaining wall for the surface was built. The resulting castings were amazing and needed very little finishing. These skills are largely lost now as is the casting of large iron gears.

[Stanley]

The replacement low pressure cylinder for Plumb Street Mill on the borer at the Wellhouse shop of Brown and Pickles. These were big jobs and we forget sometimes how heavy engineering like this was part of the industry in Barlick.

[Stanley]

Well worth seeking out Newton's transcripts on the LTP if you are interested in engines and more particularly, their maintenance. His description of boring cylinders alone is worth the effort. If you like big engineering work have a look on Lulu for my book on Brown and Pickles, they tell me it's a good read.....

[Stanley]

Bodge found this image of a big planer made by Bement in Philadelphia. Just goes to show the size of the elements they were machining.

[Stanley]

Something we tend to forget about building big machines like engines is that all the parts were individually fitted and before delivery they were erected in the shop where they were built and register marks put everywhere where they were necessary to aid the fitters, I remember English Heritage insisting on labelling parts of the Whitelees engine until I pointed out that there was no need, the original fitter's marks were still there and correct matching was the least of my problems.

[Stanley]

This was what frightened EH. To them it was a jumble of parts, to me it was perfectly logical.

[Stanley]

Having said that, I did get one nasty surprise when we found two raising blocks for the beam trunnion bearings which had been omitted from the drawings I was working from. However, all the labelling in the world wouldn't have altered that! We got away with it because I had allowed a foot extra in the room available for some unaccountable reason......

[Stanley]

Not all engines had as good a prospect as the Whitelees. Spring Mill engine at Earby en route to the scrapyard. Few sadder sights....

[Stanley]

Even worse was the sight of a good engine neglected and vandalised. The Dee Mill Engine in 1991 just before I got Scheduled Monument Permission to Demolish.

[Stanley]

Dee Mill engine at closure. It was looked after by Courtaulds and run occasionally by the Northern Mill Engine Society but I was told they were barred from the engine house after a mishap while running. After that it all went downhill despite being protected as an Ancient Monument.

[Stanley]

Modern engines and boiler plants like Dee had reached very high levels of efficiency and you might wonder why they bit the dust. Electrification in the inter war years killed many engines, individual electric motors did away with transmission shafting and were a very attractive proposition. However, many mills got a big shock, apart from having to service the capital costs the cost per loom of power increased and this drove many mills to the wall. After WW2 many engines were left but faced a new threat, the NIFE men, the National Fuel Efficiency Campaign was dedicated to increasing the use of electric power in industry to increase consumption and justify the big investment in upgrading the National Grid. They toured mills using steam engines and persuaded them that electricity was the power of the future. Unfortunately the costs killed many of those who converted. Some mill owners were a bit more sceptical and at Bancroft, advised by Newton Pickles they asked the NIFE man to guarantee that power costs would be lower. Of course they couldn't, the engine was left in and ran efficiently and profitably, well below the cost of the equivalent cost of electricity for the same load until we closed in 1978 due to other factors. If you need process steam it is still cheaper to generate your own electricity using a steam engine than run off the mains. See the Newton Pickles transcripts in the LTP for his account of Broughton Road Mill electrifying and finding they burned more coal after conversion than before with the engine.

[Stanley]

The engine at Sam Holden's in Barrowford was one of the new generation with high superheat steam, drop valves and a high piston speed. Unfortunately it wore its cylinders badly, Newton Reckoned they didn't fully understand the need for special oil when running at such high temperatures.

[Stanley]

Another way of getting a smaller footprint was to install an overtype engine like this one.

[Stanley]

Overtypes could be big engines. They were more popular on the Continent. Here's a preserved one in Germany.

[Stanley]

We mustn't forget the thousands of small engines used for auxiliary power.
A small auxiliary steam engine languishing in store for many years at Woodhouse Mill in Todmorden. Refurbished by Rochdale apprentices and installed in the new Wheatsheaf Centre as a feature.

[Stanley]

Mentioning the Wheatsheaf Centre, the new Co-operative shopping mall in Rochdale reminded me of something I'd forgotten about the Whitelees engine. I wasn't aware it was up for grabs until I was consulted by the architects of the new centre who were considering installing it in the centre as an example of Rochdale's industrial past. The Whitelees mill and engine were owned at one time by the CWS and the engine was seen as a perfect artefact to illustrate the history of the movement. Quite right of course but they were not aware of how much room it would take up because they had forgotten about the depth of it. I persuaded them that it would be a bad idea to have it taking up room in the car park underneath! They saw the light and commissioned me to find alternative artefacts, that's how they finished up with the Woodhouse engine, a deep well pump and the horizontal Tommy Robinson wood saw I found in a wood at Poynton where it had been working outside for many years. All refurbished and installed in the centre but I understand since taken out.
Once I knew about the Whitelees engine it became a project, especially when I found that it was destined for Quarry Bank at Styal. Thereby hangs a tale.....