STEAM ENGINES AND WATERWHEELS

[Stanley]

Yup. I worked on the machinery at the fulling mill for about two years from 1998 refurbishing the stocks and the other machinery. Really enjoyed it. Biggest job was a complete rebuild of the Dolly Scourer, rather like a big washing machine.



Dolly scourer after rebuild.

[Stanley]

Skyreholme paper mill water wheel. Now demolished. Near Appletreewick and reputed to be the biggest waterwheel in the North of England.

[Bodger]

You would need a fair sized spoke key to true that !

[Stanley]

True Bodge and they came in even bigger sizes!



This is the Burden wheel at Troy, New York state, USA. LINK Reputed to be the most powerful in the world, it drove a nail works.

[Stanley]

The corn mill on the Isle of Eigg in 1988.

[Stanley]

The water turbine at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal in 1981. This was installed when the original Hewes' wheel failed and was in turn replaced by the wheel from Glasshouses Mill at Pately Bridge.

[Stanley]

The engine at Mons Mill Todmorden. A Belgian engine made by Carele Freres and reputed to be the largest ever installed in a Lancashire mill. Never fully used as only one half of the mill was built.

[Nolic]

Thanks for all these Comrade. A little bit different for us all. Nolic

[Bodger]

With an abundant supply of engine makers either side of the Pennines i wonder why they went to Belgium ?

[Bodger]

Enjoy, two links to some fabulous engineering
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV57oNTAPls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... uHJBIMj_rs

[Stanley]

Bodge, have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carel_Fr%C3%A8res,_Ghent. Carel's were always looking for exports and the story I have been told is that when the builders of what was then Hare Mill at Todmorden were looking for finance Carel's agreed to invest in the mill if they bought their engine and renamed the mill Mons Mill. When this happened the chimney had already been built with a gazed brick depiction of a running hare and the name on the stack. The story was that the chimney builders cut out the original panel and replaced it with one that said 'Mons'. I was always a bit sceptical about this but when young Ronnie Goggins was dropping the stack I went across to beg some curved chimney brick for the drum we were putting on Ellenroad. The bricks for Mons came from the Newhey brickworks, the same as Ellenroad. I mentioned the story to Ronnie and asked him to take note when they got down to the panel. He told me that when they got to it it peeled off like an orange skin because all the headers into the chimney had been cut and not replaced so the story must be true. Another story emerged later after the renaming, it was said that you could always see snow from the top of the stack. This was true because if you looked at the name upside down it was an almost perfect 'snow', think about it.... Here's Ronnie and his mate on the stack the day I went to beg the bricks, in case you din't know, Ronnie had only one leg after a motor cycle accident....



Nice to know you are enjoying the images. Oneguy has a reputation for these things. The link in the Wikipedia reference to Oneguy doesn't work unfortunately as it is for the old archive.....

[Stanley]

Mons Chimney in 1986 just before demolition. It had already been lowered by about sixty feet. The boiler house was in the foreground and the engine house is behind it. When they demolished the engine house they left the massive engine beds in place as they were supporting the rest of the mill. Foundation problems on the valley bottom were one of the factors that stopped the building of the other half of the mill.

[Stanley]

Caught Germaine Greer being shown the fulling stocks at Higher Mill on a TV antique programme last night. She was remarkably well-informed about the process of fulling. I felt quite special as I looked at the machinery I refurbished, just how I left it.



The teasel raising gig at Helmshore after I refurbished it. We needed some very good timber to replace damaged parts of the barrel and I got some second-hand timber that was originally from a vinegar vat at the Barrowford Brewery. When you cut it there was a lovely smell of vinegar!

[Stanley]

The gas engine at Berry's wood yard at Sough in 1989. It was run for many years on gas made from waste wood and sawdust.

[Stanley]

The Ellenroad Engine at Newhey in 1985 before the refurbishment. Not a pretty sight!

[Stanley]

Same side 5 years later. We'd done a bit of tidying up! Nobody will ever know how much work was put into this....

[Stanley]

The HP cylinder of the Jubilee engine being moved into Masson Mill at Matlock in 2004.

[Stanley]

Jubilee at Padiham in 1986

[Stanley]

Jubilee engine at Padiham lying derelict in 1987.

[Stanley]

Terry Gissing in the engine house at Masson with the foundation that his firm made to accept the Jubilee engine.

[Stanley]

The Jubilee engine in its new home at Masson Mill. Almost finished! A big job.......

[Bodger]

Stanley, what decided the throw of the crank = stroke of a horizontal engine, i know cylinder dia would give the "force",was it the boiler output of steam, or is there a formula for optimizing stroke to the safe r p m of the flywheel ?.

[Stanley]

Lovely question and like most simple questions, how long have you got? There are some simple rules like the smaller the engine and the faster it ran the shorter the stroke would be. Over the years the tendency was to move to shorter strokes, culminating in some of the high speed Uniflows which had short strokes. Think of locomotive cylinders, they produced large powers with short strokes but high speed, this meant that the weight of the components could be kept down to a minimum thus minimising dynamic loads in the motion. Two factors influenced the speed of the normal horizontal mill engines, The size of the flywheel and the desire for low wear and reliability. Cast iron flywheels were a limiting factor because the engine builders were very conservative about the peripheral speed of the rim and therefore the gearing/ropes. They knew that the wheels were relatively weak when exposed to high centrifugal force. In 1919 the BI engine at Clough Mill ran at 98rpm on a 12ft flywheel. Ellenroad ran at 58rpm with a 28ft flywheel. The rim at Clough does about 40mph, at Ellenroad it's 60mph which was about the limit. Clough was 3ft stroke, Ellenroad 6ft. This sort of proportion was seen as the ideal because in both cases using two sides of the engine with cranks set with the LP at 90degrees advance you got a smooth drive into the shed which was what was needed for driving machinery efficiently. The designers watched how other engines performed and went for the conservative mean, they were interested in trouble free performance and followed their peers. So we ended up with what looks on the surface like a simple rule, the bigger the engine, the longer the stroke. Some firms went in for long strokes and very slow running engines like Furneval at Accrington, the engine ran at Clough Mill for a while and was discarded as a wastrel, it used too much steam. Johnny Pickles knew his stuff and reckoned that almost all mill engines ran too slow and would benefit from speeding up. The engine at Ellenroad ran like silk at 100rpm but that was during an accidental )and dangerous) overspeed. So, the bottom line is that the stroke was decided by experience, seeing what worked best and adopting that parameter. There's no doubt that in terms of safety and longevity the old designers got it about right. You can go a lot deep[er into the question by working out piston speed and the weight of motion needed but if you do you'll come up with broadly the same answer, it was the overall size that decided the matter.

[Stanley]

Dee Mill engine house demolition June 18th 1994. If you want to know why I demolished it look for 'Dee Mill' in the site search.

[Stanley]

The donkey engine in the tape room at Bancroft in 1976. Every mill had at least one such engine to run the tapes when the main engine was stopped and they are a neglected subject.