THIS TAPE WAS RECORDED ON THE 1st OF DECEMBER 1978 AT VICARAGE ROAD BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM
Now then Newton, at the end of the last tape we were on about boring cylinders and about Rowan rings. Now one of the things I’ve found out is that people always assume that engineers, especially the old engineers knew exactly what they were doing all the time and never made any mistakes but you and I know this is not true. I once remember you telling me about a cylinder you got to bore, a casting you got to machine at the shop that was all wrong, can you remember?
R-It were the high pressure cylinder for Marsden Mills at Nelson. It were a little engine, 600 horse power cross compound, Burnley Ironworks, one of them engines with all the valves at the bottom, not at each corner, exhaust and steam valves were at the bottom of the cylinder. It were cracked and it were blowing steam and water all over the floor of the engine house so we plated it. There were plenty of money around in those days and the management said we don’t like that, make a new un. So we made, we got a new cylinder cast at Marsden engines at Heckmondwyke. We had drawings for it and they machined it and all and it came to the shop and the holidays came along like and we just went on to Nelson and pulled the old cylinder out and brought it to the shop and I think I was machining the piston rod or the piston when Sydney came in to see me. He said, Newton there’s sommat not reight with that cylinder down yonder. I said Why, what’s up with it Sydney? He says well, I just took me wood lath to mark it for the length of the bore , you know, the piston travel, and he said, And me lines stuck out an inch and a half of the old one to the new un. Oh my God I says, We’d better go and have a look at this. And when I looked down inside they’d put two thicknesses of pattern on inside instead of putting the facing on the outside, they’d put a facing inside. It were a blind end cylinder, no cover on the front you know, it just came through the stuffing box. They’d put a facing on the inside when all that facing should have been on the front of the cylinder on the outside. So me father came down and he says What are we going to do about that? I says Well, it’ll have to go back, we can’t get it on to the borer in this short time, we’d only a week then to do the job.
So what it amounted to was that the blind end was too thick.
R-It was an inch and a half too thick inside the cylinder, so we took it back. Got a wagon in and they took it back and they machined it off on their brand new Richards borer and when it came back it were all right. They worked all day and all night and they machined it off with a long snout boring bar. It were a fair job and it ran me that late that when it came to Sunday night I were no where near finished so I rang me father and I says I’m not going to be running in the morning, he said to let the engine driver know and not to worry about it he’ll tell the bosses. They were all tenants there you know, it were a room and power shop. Don’t bother he says, I’ll tell them you’ll be running on Tuesday, it’s happened before. It were nowt I could do to help, I couldn’t do it, I didn’t get the cylinder back while Saturday morning, I think it were Saturday before I got it back from Heckmondwyke. So that were that, and that were all that had ever happened, owt like that case you know.
When you got one like that , when you say it was machined when it came, it wouldn’t be drilled and tapped would it for such things as bonnets and what not.
R-Oh no, that’s why it were at the shop. We did all the drilling and tapping for corliss bonnets and cylinder covers and all that, it just came bored and faced. And when I came to put it back together at Monday afternoon when I put the valves in, I looked down the ports and I said to Crabby, Eh Harry you’d better have a look at these! Oh, he says, what art ta going to do with them? Instead of being straight down the centre, the port bars, they set off at an angle , the core had moved over or they’d never put ‘em in the mould straight. But I was fitting the old valves to the new cylinder, my port bars were straight. So I couldn’t get ‘em to shut could I. I’d to twist the spindles, I fetched ‘em to the shop and got them red hot and twisted ‘em, the steam valve spindles, I had to guess at ‘em and all. And then we had to chip them, you know, three quarters wide port bars, I had to chip them to the same angle as the port bars in the casting. And they’d only just over three thirty twos of cover ‘cause I just didn’t have enough metal to give ‘em any more and there were never an engine ran like that did!
Course, we’ve always said that haven’t we, least cover you can get away with and the better.
R-Oh yes, I’ve fought for that job all me time. They used to have, I’ve come to engines and they’ve had 3/8 and ½ an inch and I’ve said, it’s no good, they won’t govern when they’re like this and the valves ud be sticking. I’ll bet it hadn’t three thirty twos of cover that one. And it’d run wi’ just the shafting on and the stop valve wide open when I’d finished wi’ it. You can just imagine can’t you looking down there and seeing ‘em. They were pointing somewhere over Burnley instead of central down the cylinder. So I twisted the spindles and straightened ‘em.
Aye, do you remember how them used to stick up at Bancroft? You know they used to grunt, how they used to grunt.
R-Oh aye, they allus had stuck.
What I did, without bothering about the rest of the linkage I just kept altering the valve until it were leaking steam and then let back a crack.
R-That’s right, until it were leaking steam.
And I don’t think they’ve a sixteenth of cover now.
R-Well, they’re running better than they ever have been.
It’s never been any bother since.
R-Not a bit of bother. And me father used to say to me, By gum Newton, tha’s not given them valves much cover. And I says Well, as long as they’re shutting that’s all it wants.
Yes, why did they have it in their heads that they had to have such a lot of cover?
R-I don’t know. Look at the lost motion on the engine and all and look at the duty it were doing pulling them open.
Yes, how could they expect the governor to look after it when the governor had all that… You know, like you couldn’t set a governor fine when it had to shift the valves half an inch before it were governing.
R-Look, I’ve stood at these engines, especially your type, and Pollits and Roberts engines with that Dobson gear on and I’ve watched it move the bonnets before it could pull the valve open. It had that much tension on, steam up at 160 and probably superheat on ‘em and I’ve watched it pull the bonnet before it ‘ud open the valve. Spring the bonnet, well in fact there’s been above one broken off. Pendle Street dropped one, one afternoon about four o’clock. Pulled the bonnet off….
When you think of the width of that valve, it’s half an inch of cover and steam at 160 pound….
R-And over two feet long, and there’s one hundred and sixty pound pressure pressing on top of it absolutely red hot superheated steam and only single ported and all and they give ‘em half an inch of cover, it had to pull it back that half an inch before it got into equilibrium.
Yes, its just like having a brake on it isn’t it.
R-What, I’ve taken ‘em out and that half an inch has all been ribbed you know, with grinding, pulling it open. Oh I soon twigged that one in my days. I thought we aren’t having any of this, I used to chip it off. Sometimes you couldn’t alter the gear you know, and they’d be opening a bit soon, a bit early you know and that made ‘em run better still.
That’s it.
R-I were a beggar for giving ‘em some lead, aye. Never had a crank pin knocking you know when they had some lead. ‘Cause it put compression on before it got to centre, pulled the pins up tight.
That’s the trouble with that engine now, I’m finding with weaving out, with running reight light. Really, it wants giving a bit more lead.
R-It wants the exhaust eccentric putting forward, close the exhaust sooner.
Aye, so’s the exhaust’ll close sooner.
R-Steam valves are all right.
Give it more, aye, the steam valves are all right, you’re right, give it more compression.
R-This engine at Crow Nest had compression curve nearly in the centre of the figure , at Crow Nest. That’s why it ‘ud run them three hundred loom with the stop valve wide open and not a noise, not a muff. You never heard any crank pins tapping even.
No, no, well like it isn’t worth it with only three weeks to go.
[Stanley Graham was weaving Bancroft out when this tape was done and was down to about 100 looms. This is why the subject of steady running on low loads with high boiler pressure was looming so large in the conversation.] [25 years later correcting this transcript I can report that I never did alter the eccentric because the engine ran so well as it was set. In the end I could run it on shafting load only with 160psi and the stop valve wide open. The governor could cope right down to minimum valve opening without missing a beat. When Ellenroad got on to very small openings it could miss a beat occasionally because of play in the valve motion.]
R-No, you see [the compression] it tightens the brasses back on even if there’s a bit of slack in them does compression when it’s coming up, it builds pressure from zero to 160 on its own quietly doesn’t it, taking the speed of the stroke.
Yes, ‘cause at the moment when those pins are………
R-They used to give them, the old do, in the old days a chap that did know sommat about the job, he’d give it an inch to a foot of stroke you know when he set the exhausts. Compression, I used to give ‘em two! I give one a bit too much one day and it lifted the crosshead up, chump, chump, chump, and that were the old side at Wellhouse. Me father says to me, What’s wrong with that engine Newton? And I says It’ll be all right while dinnertime. It were slide valve and I pushed the low pressure eccentric forward ‘cause there weren’t much load on when we started again after the war. I thought it’d be a week or two before they got a thousand loom running you know. So I hutched it up a bit, I says to Tom Marshall, I’ll save you a bit of coal hutching it up, I’ll put th’eccentric forward a bit further. Oh it had a lovely figure, it were lifting the crosshead up, chump, chump, up again the retaining plates at the end of each stroke with excessive compression. You see the low pressure hasn’t much piston pressure, but it got some wi’ me, it got more pressure from compression than it did from the high pressure with compound steam! Running light loaded, you could watch the piston rod, low pressure were at the front you know, high pressures were at the back, and when it got to the end of the stroke you could watch the piston rod lift the slipper of its face, it were a big flat slipper. And I said it’ll be all right while dinnertime, I’ll put it back a bit at dinnertime.
Well anyway we were on about Dobsons, let’s move next door to Bankfield.
R-We’ll come down to Bankfield.
Aye, two good engines.
R-They were two good engines at Bankfield, One were an 800 horsepower cross compound Burnley Ironworks wi’t valves at all four corners, one at each corner you know. And the other one were about 600 horse about as big as Bancroft with valves all at the bottom. It were a new engine to run the bottom shed, well they gave very little trouble did them. I remember in the weaver’s strike, I were only a lad, Me father says We’re going to be busy Newton!. I says What’s up? He says All the corliss bonnets have to come off at Bankfield, they’re going to have them all bushed while they’re stopped. That were all…….
Before you tell us about that, when were the weaver’s strike?
R-When I started working Stanley, I’m 62 now, I’d have been working two years or so.
So you’d start at 14?
R-That’s 48 years ago, 1930. In 1930 all the mills in the town were stopped.
[SG thought it would have been 1932, the More Looms Dispute.]
R-I went with Leonard Parkinson and we took all the bonnets off both engines. We skimmed the spindles up and bushed ‘em while the mills were stopped, it were stopped six weeks I think. We were absolutely piled out of the place wi’ work. It were coming in from all over were t’jobs. You know, they were getting ‘em [the jobs] done at ordinary time instead of bothering at weekend.
Aye, rebuilding the engines.
R-Ooh we were [busy], some work came in and I were running wi’t gas engine up at shop, we had a big Crossley.
Aye, that’d be because the engine were stopped?
R-And then I’d that to look after so like my job was from six in the morning while nine at night.
You’d be thriving off it!
R-I were, 12/6 a week and no overtime pay!
Anything special about Bankfield?
R-No, they were just standard Burnley Ironworks engines. Big un were like Crow Nest.
How about the boilers?
R-There were three boilers.
Aye, three Yates and Thom’s, that’s it. They’ve just taken them out.
R-Just cut ‘em up haven’t they. I used to have a lot of rivet trouble at Bankfield. Why, I don’t know, allus putting ‘em in. And they were one of the first shops, Bankfield you know, to have humidifiers blowing with compressed air from outside and all. We put a big vertical compressed air set in outside, it run with steam, steam job, for humidifiers. It’ud be one of the first shops round here that were ever done with that.
You say they used compressed air?
R-Big compressors were outside, they ran with a big vertical, twin cylinder vertical engine.
How did they humidify, blowing water in or what?
I don’t know how it worked because I weren’t old enough to take a lot of notice. ‘Cause you see then Bankfield had just sat down just like that Stanley and that were the end of it.
When did Bankfield shut down?
R-About 32 or 33, I hadn’t been working so long when Bankfield and Butts stopped.
What happened to Bankfield then?
R-It were empty. Archie Rhodes and his father were engine drivers there and Archie stopped on as watchman till Rover came, 1940.
So that’d be….
R-Six or seven year. Nice feller were Archie.
So who were weaving there when they stopped?
R-It were all room and power men, all sorts of firms. Bradley’s, Barnoldswick Manufacturing Company, oh, all sorts of shops were in there Stanley, Bits, a lot of bits.
Who owned Bankfield?
R-It were a room and power company. Local people were the shareholders.
Aye but it weren’t Calf Hall were it?
R-It were the Bankfield Shed Company.
I have an idea that when it was first built it was called the Barnoldswick Room and Power Company.
R-But there were a firm in with a terrible lot of looms, they’d have a lot over a thousand, the Barnoldswick Manufacturing Company were in Bankfield as tenants. But there were a chap called Bracewell that seemed to be secretary for the room and power company. He lived down Gisburn Road, a nice feller he were. Wait a minute, When I were going out with Freda Nutter she lived at Wellfield, she were one of this lot at Bancroft. When I were going out with her as school kids, she went to Skipton Grammar School and was a bit lah di dah for me but we did get on well. It were her grandfather on her mother’s side. Now her mother was a Bracewell, they lived down Gisburn Road him that were secretary for the Bankfield Shed Company. So I’m right there. I think Freda lives at Blacko now, her husband died fairly young. And she were one of the Bancroft Nutters.
So when Rover took over during the war, when they requisitioned it for Rover, the engines had finished.
R-Well, British Celanese bought it and they never did anything with it and they’d be paying Archie’s wage all them years.
British Celanese.
R-Aye, they bought it and for all I know they still have it. ‘Cause at one time me father came down into the shop to me one afternoon, and this were just before the war. He says, Come on with me Newton to Great Harwood. That’s Great Harwood just over be Blackburn there, Accrington. He says I’ve got to meet some bosses to British Celanese at that brick mill just off the main road. It stands back before you go into Great Harwood and it’s a pretty modern building. It would be built about the same time as Bancroft but it’s a red brick un. And he said I think they’re going to do something about Bankfield. Now whether they had intended starting it up again, you know, wi’t war coming out. He says, They want to see me. ‘Cause they couldn’t start the top half ‘cause we’d pulled the engine out. We pulled the top engine out just before the war, took it, we were going to put it in at Long Ing, they bought it did Stephen Pickles.
Aye, that’s it.
R-We pulled it out, big un, big engine, a lovely job. Anyhow, me father went and there were all this talk about what it would take to get the bottom half of the mill running, which wouldn’t have taken much with Archie having been there of course, he’d looked after the place. It only wanted some steam getting up and we were on us way. But it never came to anything, Rover came in. Aye, we took the engine out at top end, big un, Len Parkinson did anyway and we took it to Long Ing but war broke out and it spoiled the job. We were going to pull the engines out at Long Ing, both of them, and put this big engine in. We were going to lengthen the engine house you know because it were a gear drive were’t Long Ing. We’d have to lengthen the engine house thirty feet for the rope drive length, We were going to put it all in and run Long Ing off a big alternator. I think it’s all on one of the tapes, I have told you about that.
That’s it.
R-It’s no good repeating that again.
No, and the little ‘un were….
R-And we were going to put the engine in right away. And then we were going to put the Buckley [and Taylor] in at the far side, we were going to put it in where it were, we couldn’t put the new one in without taking the Buckley out. We were going to put the Buckley back when we’d got the new beds in, get the Buckley running and they were just going to run the alternator with the Buckley for lights at Long Ing and Barnsey which would have been an ideal set up.
Aye, it would have been lovely wouldn’t it, beautiful.
R- Lovely, aye. Anyway, when we come to look at the engine after the war they’d neglected it a bit. We’d painted it all with white lead before we put it in the yard but they’d left the slides open and they’d filled up with water and rusted away. We couldn’t empty them and the bottoms of the slides were jiggered. So it were broken up and electrified. We just electrified stuff as it came in, looms you know. You see the admiralty took it over during the war just as a stores, all the looms were gone so they started with new plant. So that were the end of that.
And who took…
R-We took the Buckley out.
Who took the other engine out of Bankfield, Rover?
R-They’d smash it up, the scrap chaps. It stopped in a long time, oh it were in for years before somebody came along, I think it was a Barlick lad called Sydney Widdup that took it out. Broke it up,. Bonny engine just the same engine as Westfield was, aye. ‘Cause it were a shop that I never really got to know, you know what I mean. I didn’t get about it all donkeys years like I got about the other places.
Well, let’s move next door to Crow Nest.
R-Crow nest.
Hartley’s as was then.
R-Albert Hartley’s and Anthony Carr. It were built in 1914, Burnley Ironworks thousand horse cross compound, centre shaft drive down a gearing alley with big high speed narrow pitched wheels. Aye, it were a lovely job, purred did that gearing alley, the engine ran at 78 on to a little second motion pulley. I think it were about 190 the line shaft.
Engine ran at 78?
R-Aye, 78 and 190 were the line shaft. They put these big wheels on, talking about big bevels, they were about three feet in diameter and only be about an inch and a quarter pitch. Ran beautiful they did.
Were they machine cut gears?
R-No, cast wheels.
What stroke were that engine?
R-Four feet six inches.
It were travelling.
R-Oh it were travelling, it were Belliss and Morcombe piston speed, Fernbank were more.
Aye, we’ll get on to Fernbank in a bit but that one were travelling weren’t it.
R-aye, Fernbank were more, aye, that were travelling but Fernbank were five feet stroke, same speed. It had some piston speed on. And them engines, I ran that engine of a night Stanley for two year. Three nights on….
Which engine?
R-Crow Nest. Three nights one week and two another like, helping the engine man out when he were on a night shift you know. With 120 looms on and steam up at 160 and stop valve wide open. [At this period many of the mills ran a ‘housewife’s shift’ from 6 till ten and not all the looms would be running. It was called the ‘moonlight shift’ in some places.]
What were the governor?
R-Ordinary Whitehead. It’s a pity it doesn’t show pictures this tape recorder, I could explain the valves better wi’ me hands rather than talking. You couldn’t see ‘em move. Just went…
Well them didn’t have much cover then.
R-They hadn’t hardly any because I reset ‘em.
That’s it aye, and yet there’s a funny thing you see….
R-I got shouted at about them wi’ old Dobson when he were there, aye.
Aye, Whitehead governor you see, I mean that’s what they had at Bancroft and they could never govern the engine, how….
R-Oh no, we took it off and put a Lumb on. [At Bancroft]
Yes, but how could they govern, how could they govern with the Whitehead down yonder then.
R-Because they were double ported valves.
Aye, that’s it.
R-That’s single. [Bancroft engine]
Yes, that’s it.
R-Like a gas engine running, you know, next to drop valve job. [a completely different principle and a very fast acting valve. Common on later engines]
Yes.
R-We used to say to Roberts why don’t you make some double ported valves. It’s just as easy as making single ported ones, they only want another bar in the cylinder and a slot through the valve, that’s all.
Aye, they’d have been a lot better wouldn’t they.
R-Oh they would have been a lot better, you see they travel too far.[the single ported valves] You notice when we stopped, especially when I wound it up, how far they’re travelling. Well when I used to wind the governor up at Crow Nest like at stopping time, you know, to get it started again. I mean they didn’t travel as far as yours are doing without load on.
[What Newton is talking about is altering the speed regulator on the governor to give more travel to the valves when starting the following morning with far more load. He evidently did it with the engine running, just before he closed the stop valve. I always used to do it last thing as the engine was stopping. It’s best to do it at stopping time because you can’t readily tell where the regulator is set when the engine is stationary. I used to give Bancroft about two and a half turns.]
R-When I started up used to click, and it were away. And you know you only had to crack that stop valve never mind put a full turn on. You know with them double ported valves, and it were off.
Aye, one of the things that struck me with them valve springs on that engine at Bancroft, they’d been on since it were new. And I mean, they’re just about buggered, I put a packing block behind them just to give them a bit more strength.
R-Aye, we’ve all done that Stanley, I used to put a wood block behind ‘em.
Yes, but when I did it I had to think about how far them valves’ll come up otherwise it’d smash the bonnet.
R-They’ll jam up you know and break the bonnet off. Aye, by gum, aye.
I had to think and reckoned up I could give them just short of half an inch.
R-Aye, you’ve to reckon up how far that valve wants to open. Or if the governor’s wound up or you’re well loaded.
Especially if your pressure’s well down.
R-How far it’s going to go, it can smash the bonnet off.
Aye, because once that catch has hold, it comes up again and something’s got to give somewhere.
R-It doesn’t let go, it doesn’t let go. You know there’s been many a bonnet broken off through the engineer taking the governor rods off to change the catches and then found out that the engine weren’t in exactly the right place and barred it round. And you see what happens if you take the governor rods off, you’re lifting arms don’t lift the catch out Stanley.
No, it just keeps going.
R-And it pulls the full length of the eccentric and you know how slow it’s going, you don’t see it till… but you hear it, creeeek! And off comes the bonnet! And the spindle bent like a lump of rubber tube. Mmmmm, I had lots of them, especially late at night.
Aye, when you’re tired and it’s dark.
R-Aye we’ve had lots of them late at night when the engineer has decided to change a catch after half past five. Tom Marshall did it at Wellhouse, Raikehead did it, Seedhill did it, Valley Mills at Nelson did it, Red Cross at Rochdale. They find they can’t get the catch out because the carriage isn’t in the reight place. There’s something in the way at the back, especially with Burnley Ironworks motion where it comes out of a slot. So they bar the engine round to a different shop and instead of knocking it out first, just bar it round, go on, bar it up lad you know. I can just picture old Tom Marshall. Go on lad, just bar it up a bit further, go on, we’re reight, Creeeek!
Oh my God!
R-Instead of lifting the catch out and letting it skate over the top.
This were at Crow Nest?
R- Aye, Crow Nest. Three boilers at Crow Nest, a perfect set up were that you know. One off and two on. Never boiler cleaning or owt at weekends, do it during the week.
That’s something we’re very lucky with at Bancroft, we don’t have to bother cleaning boilers or owt like that. You know, apart from once a year. Which were the worst shop in Barlick for water, would it be the canal shops? You know, for scaling boilers?
R-Well, they varied such a lot. I mean you’d get Fisher at Moss with umpteen thicknesses of scale on his boilers and you’d go to Long Ing where it were a different engine driver and he’d have nowt on his, all off the same water. So it were up to the chap being particular enough to see to his compo.
Aye, there’s a lot in that. That’s one of the things that saddens me up there, we’ve taken care of that boiler and just got it right.
R-Just got it nice and clean haven’t you. It varied a lot did that.
Yes, it’s amazing what you can do if you get the right compo and just keep using it and test your water.
R-I mean I went to Spring Bank, I think I were at Spring Bank at Nelson more off than on, two and a half year for Gilbert Jay. My boilers were just reight, you could see all the rivets and that and I just worked to what he’d put in, you know, it were all written down. And I’d go the next shop, Seedhill, They’d to get a new boiler in there. Me Father says, Hasta ever seen in yon boiler at Seedhill Newton? When they were pulling the old boiler out we did some piping . I said no I’ve never looked. He says Tha’d better have a look in it before it goes. I bet it were two inches thick on the top of the tubes. It were only a quarter of a mile further down the canal. [from Spring Bank] You see, it’s the engineer isn’t it?
Yes. I remember Charlie Sutton telling me a tale once, and I’ve no reason to doubt him ‘cause he didn’t have to tell stories. I’m not sure which mill it were but I think it were Barden, down Barden Lane.
R-It’d be Grenfell, aye.
And he said that at one time they had a lot of trouble with the boiler inspector, him from Brierfield, Vulcan Insurance Company, McNeill I think was his name.
R-Aye, he’s all right is Roger if you know how to handle him.
Anyway, what happened there, the boiler was scaling up badly, really badly, and he told them they had to get it reight, get it scaled properly or else he wasn’t going to pass it. He said it had just got ridiculous, they were getting bothered about the job. Anyway they got on to old Jim Sutton, Charlie’s dad and Jim told the engineer one night, I think he was only joking, but he says I’ll tell you what, if you want to scale that boiler, I’ll tell you how to scale it. Either put three gallons of linseed oil in or three gallons of paraffin, it doesn’t matter which, and all your scale’ll bloody drop off. He never thought any more about this until about a fortnight later they got a ring. Could they come down to Barden Mill because they were having trouble, they couldn’t blow any water off the boiler. They were blowing it down a lot you see and they couldn’t get any water out. They’d fallen into a trap. They got scale and so they blew it down more and more and there’s nothing makes scale faster than blowing down.
R-No, there isn’t.
Because if it’s bad water, it’s bad water you’re putting back in to make up.
R-Aye, and you’ve purified it once.
Well, there you are, they’re blowing it down and it got as it wouldn’t blow down, they were opening the valve and there were nothing happening, just a little trickle coming out. So Charlie said all you can do is let the boiler go out at weekend and we’ll have to cool it down somehow and have look inside it. So anyway, at weekend they made some connections to the boiler and started pumping cold water through it till they got it cool enough to open the lid and then they pumped the water out of the boiler so as they could see what were going on. He said it were beautiful, there weren’t a bit of scale on it, it were all in the bottom.
R-Aye, it were all in the bottom like a mountain.
He told me, what a bloody job they had and in the finish they had to undo the mudhole and knock it in wi’ a tup!
R-I’d to knock that one at the dairy in with a tup.
And let the water out, you can tell me about the dairy in a minute.
R-Aye.
They had to let the water run out and soak away under the boiler as well as it could. He said there was water for evermore, sludge, scale…
R-Oh what a mess!
Anyway he said they took all weekend to clean it out and they were late starting on Monday but they got it all out and he said the boiler was perfect. It were about four weeks to the inspection and Jim told ‘em to blow it down regularly to get rid of the smell of paraffin because it’s amazing how long it hangs about. Anyway, McNeill comes down, looks through the mudhole and says Who the bloody hell’s done this! He played hell, he says you’re lucky that boiler isn’t leaking like an old kettle, which they were, but it were a newish boiler you see.
R-Aye, it were a domed end un because they’d done two in before you know.
Aye, so, they got away with it but McNeill told ‘em if he ever caught them doing that again….
R-Aye, what it does, it gets down between the joints and with the expansion, the plates and rivets start working because tha’s oiled ‘em.
What did you say about knocking in the mudhole at Dobsons?
R-I’d to knock the mud hole in at the dairy with a big three hundred weight tup when they had it full of milk.
Full of milk?
R-I told you, it’s on a tape you know.
Aye, I remember now, we were on about Settle and all
R-When we pulled out all of the milk in vacuum pumps into the boiler. We’d to knock the mudhole in with a three hundred weight tup, bottom lid.
Oh, it’d stick open all right.
R-It did, and that boiler were absolutely crusted up. If you’d have getten some cows in there they’d have had a reight do eating it, like cattle food when we’d boiled it up.
[What Newton is referring to here is that Dobsons were drying milk and whey on open drum dryers to produce powder that went into calf milk replacement and other food processing applications. The dried crust in the boiler was very similar to what was being produced in the dairy.]
Right, That’s Crow Nest. We’re quietly knocking them off, any bother with Crow Nest? Any trouble?
R-Oh aye, after the war. We never knew really what caused it, they allus said it was an air pump rubber that came off. One afternoon they rings up and said would we go down, they had had a smash up. I went down with me father and piston rods, tail slide, were five and a half inch rods and the back end tail slides were stuck up higher than the top of the cylinder, they’d had water in. They’d getten some water from somewhere, it had split the cylinder right down the middle, it lifted the top half off just like an egg. You’ve seen the photographs. It smashed all the back cover and sheared the studs. It had smashed the tail slide foundations right off, you know, standing on the tail. It sheared the cross head cotter first and when it [the crosshead] came back it didn’t go in the hole , it must have gone up a time or two because it were all scoured but then it missed and knocked it out through the back end. It split the piston like a Kraft cheese in a box, into six pieces, and it were a right mess, poor old Sydney were poorly, no doubt about that. [Sydney Heaton]
Now wait a minute, you say they had an air pump rubber come off, how….?
R-It were running very light loaded just at that time.
What do you think it had done, drawn water up through the exhaust?
R-Drawn water out of the hot well into the engine aye, sucked it back through the Edwards air pump. Vacuum must have sucked it up through the ports into the low pressure cylinder but I don’t agree with ‘em.
What do you think it were, a slug? [A ‘slug’ is a mass of water that passes through a system in one lump]
R-I didn’t agree with ‘em, no, it had primed and gone through the high. [pressure cylinder]
Tell me something, I can never weigh that one up, I’ve never had one happen.
R-Oh you don’t want no priming Stanley! It’s terrible.
Yes but when you get a prime, how can it get through the low pressure cylinder without doing it in the high?
R-Well, I said it had done but I had to explain. It got a right cylinder full into the high pressure and it were lucky. It must have got it during the length of the stroke and filled it but the exhaust valve were open and when it went back it shoved it down the pipe and it went straight into the low. ‘Cause it’s a cross compound engine set at ninety degrees so that side were open and all but when that piston came back on low pressure that [the exhaust valve] were shut because them valves on the low pressure shut about two foot sooner than the high think on, they have to get some compression up. That’s when it shoved the end out of the cylinder and it never blew the relief valves because they were full of shinio metal polish!
Aye, that’s a thing.
[I’ve come across this many a time since. Most relief valves are brass and prominent and get a lot of polishing. Due to their construction it’s very easy for excess polish to get into the valve and on to the seat where it sets up mild corrosion and sticks the relief valve down. The function of the relief valve is to lift easily to allow any excess water to escape and on the low would only be set at about 50psi maximum. It shows how well they were stuck that they resisted pressures high enough to split the cylinder. SCG.]
R-That did it and nobody telled me any different about Crow Nest, it were no air pump rubber. It went through the high because, and this was another thing Stanley, it were like whitewash. You don’t get that unless it has come from the boiler.
Yes, compo.
[Compo is boiler composition, a chemical additive injected into the boiler with the feed water to inhibit the formation of hard scale.]
R-Compo, and boiling hot and all. When I say boiling I mean fizzing.
We’d better explain to people I mean we both understand what we’re talking about but other people don’t. When we talk about priming we mean when a boiler starts, when it’s full to the top….
R-Full to the top with water and instead of steam going up the pipe it’s water at 160psi.
That’s it, but you can get priming with mucky water and somebody doing something silly.
R-You can get it intermittent with oil in the boiler or too much compo.
Yes, and I’ll tell you something else that can make ‘em prime and all, if the firebeater washes his overalls in the hot well with soap powder and uses too much of it!
R-And puts that in, anything that froths, yes. ‘Cause I had a do at Seedhill when I were there a long time, I was there twelve months and someone put a barrel of Stergene, liquid soap, into the canal one weekend. When I looked in at me air pump on Monday morning and it were beautiful! It were possing it and there were suds coming over the top. I thought it’s a good job I’m well loaded, I don’t like that. And within half an hour Gilbert Jay came dashing down from Spring Bank, he hadn’t retired then, he said How’s your air pump Newton? I says, Going up and down like it allus does! He said Never mind the codology, let’s have a look at it. It were a big air pump and I said, Oh, we’re sudding away merrily, do you want any washing doing? He says, You want to go and have a look at mine, with having a thousand horse on. Well, I says, what’s happened. He said that someone had tipped a forty gallon drum of soap in the canal over the weekend. Them mills weren’t so far apart you know. There were me, Whitefield and then Springbank aye, and it were beautiful, it’d be after dinner when it settled down. I didn’t like it, did I heck. I didn’t like that going into the boiler you know.
No well, the other day up at Bancroft, with finishing the tapes, he emptied the size beck into the dam and they must have had a fair bit in. Well, when he did, I turned the towns water on into the well. John came to me and said that water was on in the well and I said yes, it’ll stop it coming back in from the dam. Wait while that lot settles down. I said I didn’t know what that lot would do in the boiler and seeing as we only had three weeks to go I weren’t having any accidents ‘cause that’s just when they happen.
R-You know it’s a funny thing you should say that. I’ve been up twice this week to do an odd hour for you and I’ve been more careful this last few days than I’ve ever been.
Yes, so have I.
R-I’ve never left that engine once and if I’ve walked round once I’ve done it fifty times.
Aye, that’s it.
R-I’m having no bearing ropes off, we’ve only three weeks to do.
No you’re right, you’re right. That thought had gone through my mind.
R-It can happen.
Oh you can get alekewfik. (army slang for not caring what is going on.)
R-Crow Nest, I might as well tell the tale about what we did. We were stopped then, smashed up. We got down, got some men, got some blocks up, there were no crane, it were all big oak joists, you’d to move ‘em about you know, about twelve inch square roof baulks. We got it stripped, we lifted the top half of the cylinder off, just like lifting the top half of an egg. Me and Harry Crabtree were taking the top bonnets off you know, steam valve bonnets and Harry says Hold on a minute Newton, there’s a blooming great lump of this corner coming off, never mind taking the nuts off. You know we’d taken the nuts off and I was drawing the bonnet, he were at the other side were Harry and corner of the cylinder were coming off and all. He says, Stand well back. ‘Cause you see there were lagging covering it up for a start. So anyway, we get it all stripped off and motion off and lagging off and then I lifted the top half of the cylinder off. It looked like a sectioned job in a museum. We got piston rod out and piston away and plenty of blokes on the job and wagon outside and got it all carted away. We wheeled the cylinder round the engine on a truck and tipped it through the window up this side, up t’mill side you know. We didn’t bother taking the steps away or anything like that and what we’re going to do now you know, the insurance blokes were there and it were before McNeill’s time.
Yes, hang on a minute, you say you didn’t bother taking the steps away or anything like that.
R-That were the engine house steps. I left them, with having the cylinder I two halves I’d no need to. I didn’t use the proper door to take it in or out of, I took it round th’engine between the second motion shaft and the flywheel and chucked it out through the window.
That’s something that people don’t realise many a time isn’t it, that engine house door were allus big enough to take the low pressure cylinder out of.
R-Yes, always the low pressure. So, but there’d been some buildings built up at the big window end, second motion end of course, it were no good going there, there were t’second motion shaft and pulley in the way anyway. Anyway, I got rid of it and got it outside and oh, I were nattered by the insurance company you know. There were a bloke coming from Burnley, it were afore McNeill’s time, Bentley they called the insurance inspector. He kept coming to me and saying Newton, what you going to do? I said I’m going to couple the high pressure to the air pump and let
‘s get going. He says it won’t drive the load. Well I were still living here then you know and I said it’ll drive the load. I’ve reckoned it up on the kitchen table. If steam’s up at 1`60 there’ll be nothing to spare but it’ll run it. No, it won’t drive the load Newton, I’ve reckoned it up. Anyhow, he says, there’s a bloke coming from London, head man from British Engine, and by the way, it had only been insured with British Engine for one day, 24 hours. It had been taken off Vulcan and put on to British Engine because they’d had a bit of bother over the boilers.
Heh, they’d be sick!
R-Twenty four hours it had been insured with British Engine and t’middle of the morning after, we’re getting a pretty clear field on, we were starting to take some particulars for a pipe from the high pressure to the air pump and I’m down this hole and this chap came in, nice feller he were, tall thin chap and I can see him now. Mr Pickles I says I’m here. Can you come up a minute? Yes I says, before we start, don’t start on about these motors in the gearing alley because I’m not bothering with no motors until I’ve got this mill running. Look he says, I’m not bothering you about any motors, you carry on with the plans I’ve heard about, it’ll run this mill. I says, Aye, it’ll run it but they’ll burn some coal but it’ll run the mill. It were a big engine you know, it were twenty five inch bore were the high pressure. Anyhow he says It’ll run it if they can keep steam up. I says, it’ll run it and they’ll keep steam up because they’ve got three boilers. And he took Bentley away and that were the last I saw of ‘em. I got a piece of eighteen inch gas pipe at the gas works, you know the gas works were still working then. Steel pip[e, we cut it and bent it and welded it all sorts of fancy shapes till we got it from the air pump connection to the high pressure exhaust connection under the engine. We had all the floor up and we got it coupled up and about two o’clock in the morning I were ready for running. This were a week and three days later, I were ready for running but there were no engine driver, me an Ernie were poorly.
How did you drive the air pump?
R-Oh, I straightened the piston rod out as best I could, took it up to the shop and straightened it and I fabricated a bracket to stand at the end, , on’t cylinder foundation as far back as I could get it wi’ a big bronze bush in. we fastened it down wi’ four bolts but I’d slotted ‘em because I know it wouldn’t be straight, so’s bush could slide up and down and find its own centre and I put the tail slide and slipper back on you know and that’s how we ran it, put tail slide back on. I repaired the stone [where it had broken out] with a piece of steel plate. We left the slide without plates, it hadn’t any plates on hadn’t Burnley Ironworks slides, You know, yours has plates on up at Bancroft. [Newton means the retaining plates on top of the slide to stop any tendency of the slipper to rise.] They’d no top plates on but I said it would be alright if it wants to come up, let it. It couldn’t go far with that big bush, it were about a foot long were this bronze bush, big flange on and four bolts in but not tightened, locked with lock nuts. Anyhow, about two o’clock in the morning we were ready for running, Crabby says Are we going to run it Newton? I says Aye, we’re going to get on in the morning, we’re going to get them weavers back. I’d got the fireman there and the oiler were there and we got some steam up. Sydney weren’t there but I says don’t bother about Sydney, we’ll soon have it running, I’ve run it many a time you know when they’ve been poorly. So we got warmed up and barred it round, and barred it round you know, and it were champion there weren’t owt sticking anywhere.. I says right, we’ll have to get it running so I just cracked the stop valve open and she went round about twice and Crabby were down the low pressure side. He shouts Whoa Newton, there’s sommat not right here! He said that when the crank came down it was sparking on the low pressure fly wheel shaft pedestal. Oh no I said, That’s crowned it reight. It hasn’t moved the fly wheel shaft pedestal has it? And it had, It had moved the pedestal on the low pressure side about half an inch. With the jar you know. A sudden shock had brought it out. It had tightened the shaft between the bearings because we hadn’t got, we hadn’t gone round half a dozen times and the collar on the bearing behind the crank were red hot. Crabby says Oh blooming heck! And they were big nuts. He says Are we going to loosen ‘em, to yank it back at this time of night? I says No, we’re not Harry, I says Let’s go back to the shop and get that big tup from the shop. We had a big tup that we used on fly wheel keys sometimes, it weighed about eight hundred weight with two rings in you know. I says let’s go and get that big tup, we’ve got the blocks up, let’s knock it back opposite road to what it knocked itself out. And we did, we thumped it back, bang, we could get to the pedestal with the crank at the top and we tupped it back to where it were before, we could see the mark you see.
We did it without loosening the bolts, we brayed it back and you couldn’t tell we’d touched it. Come on, we’ll try again and it ran like a sewing machine, it did. Anyway, we got a load on and we got running at morning. The weavers straggled in, you know how they are, it took ‘em a couple of days to get back to their work after a job like that. Sydney came down and he were scared of it, I’d to go down every morning wi’ him at starting time and that. We’d no bother with me bronze bush and tail slide or owt, the air pump, we had a good vacuum. Tha talks about shifting coal, they hadn’t been used to burning coal like that at Crow Nest, anyhow, I left him with it. He rang up a day or two after and I were out, I’d gone on somewhere else and me father says Hey, get to Crow Nest, Sydney’s panicking! High pressure cylinder’s knocking now. I says No, never! And I went down but he must have been imagining it, it weren’t knocking but by heck, it weren’t half nodding. I says it’s going to break that bed, We’d 590 horse on and the figures were crossing on the high pressure with 160 pounds on. I says Look Sydney, stop it and we’ll send them home. So, it’d be the middle of the afternoon, so we stopped it and I sent them home, I said it would be all right in the morning. And you see that engine , like we’ve just been on about compression, well it always had a lot of compression on top keep, ‘cause it ran so quiet you know and a hell of a big flywheel and all. So I knocked the exhaust vale eccentric back until they were just closing at the end of the stroke because you see I were wanting vacuum to give ‘em a full do of opening. I says Let’s try it now tomorrow and it ran like a sewing machine but there were a tap in the crank pin. I’d to take the crank pin up and the crosshead because now it were running without compression. But it were the only way you could run it with one cylinder.
Yes, because you wanted the vacuum to work an’ all.
R-I wanted the vacuum to pull the piston back, I wanted all the vacuum I could get for the full length of the stroke, and that stopped it nodding. Because when it come to compression I mean it could have been shoving it right up there, the indicator diagram were going right up and looping. They could have been up to 200psi straight up at back on full compression. So I knocked it (the eccentric] back and it ran a treat, it ran like that from July till March, to February when the new cylinder came. It were February and it were snowing like the clappers and I think they like, Heckmondwyke made that and machined it and all and drilled it and it came on a blooming wagon and of all the senseless people, they sent on the wagon wrong side up. Eight and a half ton.
You had to turn it round.
R-I had to turn it over in the mill yard with a couple of blocks on a fourteen inch girder that we’d put across the yard to lift it up. And to get it in we’d taken all the steps away and the window and door out. Door jamb had to come out, it wouldn’t go through.
End of tape.
SCG/09 November 2000
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