Author Topic: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.  (Read 193743 times)

Online Jo

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2015, 05:14:46 PM »
:naughty: Inner and outer straps on the beam ends I fancy making an engine with those myself now I seen them   8).

Jo
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Offline steam guy willy

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2015, 12:58:19 AM »
i have now sort of completed the HP cyl set up and this will give me an idea how to construct the real one i.e. get the sequences in the correct order etc etc, the LP cyl will be next............. :help: :headscratch:

Offline ths

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2015, 09:22:01 AM »
The steam jacketed cylinder is interesting Willy, what do you think the purpose of that was? I would have thought that the cavity would fill with condensing water as the steam cools with every exhaust stroke. I know that traction engines had cylinders warmed by boiler steam, but they were sitting on top of the boiler, this is somewhat removed. Hmmm. Hugh.

Offline steamer

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2015, 10:42:09 AM »
Steam jacketing was used to reduce condensation losses.  You control the temperature by throttling the steam in the jacket.

Remember, this is a compound, and an early one at that.    Steam pressures were probably not really high enough to really take advantage of it.

Dave
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Offline steam guy willy

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2015, 04:27:58 PM »
some pic's of the drawings for the Beeleigh engine. You will notice on the cyl head drawing the bolt holes are not equally spaced ,so am i going yo do this on the model so people can say    oh look at his bolt spacing's  "Rubbish" !!.......................

Offline Beam Engineer

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2015, 06:34:58 PM »
Hi Robert,

My first post and thanks for telling me about this site!

This looks a most interesting subject: Wentworths of Wandsworth built a number of engines to this basic design and two of them still(?) exist also in Wandsworth at what was the Old Ram Brewery.

The first engine ("12 Horses Power") was built in May 1835 (rebuilt to 16hp with a rebore in 1865) and like the Beeliegh engine it had swivels on its beam ends to cater for any misalignment when installed on site - a common problem in the earlier years of engine building as cast iron was rather unpredictable in those days before proper empirical analysis in metallurgy. By the time the second engine was installed at The Ram in 1867 - metal technology and the confidence to machine it with accuracy had both improved - Wentworth's were confident enough to supply the engine with solid cast beam ends with the piston rod and conrod (or should I say Sweep Rod?) pins pushed in to the rigid beam ends.

The swivelling ends were a carry over from the early wooden framed beam engines whose wooden beams would change shape and "move" as carpenters say, with changes in humidity and temperature. James Watt incorporated the swivel end to get around this which was exacerbated by customers having their engines made as cheaply as possible (clients had to find their own carpenters and smiths as Boulton and Watt only supplied the cylinders and valves) often with unseasoned timber as the Napoleonic wars caused wood shortages because it was needed for Royal Navy ships. I'm not sure if Watt actually invented the swivelling beam end; early engines were built by millwrights who'd often got the accumulated knowledge of generations of their family in the trade and it was from these craftsmen that he got the idea of using a centrifugal governor. Watt was far too severe and honest a man to lay claim to anything that wasn't his idea.  Although it's often called a "Watt" Governor, he never laid claim to it and always pointed out the error if it was stated in his presence.

I would love to visit the Beeliegh site at some point and take 10,000 photos for reference. For that matter I'd like to visit Wandsworth again and see if the two engines still exist on their original site, which became expensive yuppie flats a few years ago, with the promise that the engines would remain. When I viewed them in the late 1980s, both were oiled up and ready to go at a moment's notice in case the electric pumps which replaced them broke down again.

I could burble on and on, Boring for England on this subject as beam engines are a passion of mine and I've been working on one of my own design (built to practices and formulae used by contemporary makers) for AGES! Now that I have a hut of my own and am slowly getting my workshop ready, I hope to be able to continue with my engine and finish it within the next 93 years. For any of those of you who are still awake at this point, I'm going to try to attach a happy snap or two of my engine in its current state. I long to get it out of storage and carry on with it!

Regards to all of you,

Mitch

Offline Beam Engineer

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #21 on: February 21, 2015, 06:36:27 PM »
Here's the other photo I tried to post...

My best,

Mitch

Online sco

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #22 on: February 21, 2015, 06:47:51 PM »
Welcome to MEM Mitch - please post some more pictures of your engine on a new thread ;-)

Simon.
Ars longa, vita brevis.

Offline ths

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #23 on: February 21, 2015, 07:32:27 PM »

Steam jacketing was used to reduce condensation losses.  You control the temperature by throttling the steam in the jacket.

Remember, this is a compound, and an early one at that.    Steam pressures were probably not really high enough to really take advantage of it.

Dave

Thanks Dave, I thought that the pressure might have been a little low.

Hi Mitch, lovely engine, interesting story. I look forward to more.

Willy, nice drawings, when they see the quality of your work, I doubt too many will question the the hole spacing.

Hugh.

Offline Beam Engineer

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2015, 08:46:21 PM »
Having seen the quality of Willie's work, I'd think that if anyone spots the hole spacing, they'll assume that it's meant to be like that.

Thanks for the comments about my engine: I've got to dash but I'll see ifIi can start a fresh thread about it, with a bit of background blurb.

Kindest regards to all of you,

Mitch

Offline steam guy willy

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #25 on: February 22, 2015, 12:18:32 AM »
Having seen the quality of Willie's work, I'd think that if anyone spots the hole spacing, they'll assume that it's meant to be like that.

Thanks for the comments about my engine: I've got to dash but I'll see ifIi can start a fresh thread about it, with a bit of background blurb.

Kindest regards to all of you,

Mitch
Hi Mitch ,i have now read your post in detail and notice your "SWEEP ROD" comment....... I am allways searching for the correct ternimology/terminology to talk about various parts of steam engines as the language used can be misleading, What about a definitve illustrated glossary  of parts, with all the various spellings etc. Linnaes did this for vegetable plants so what about one for steam plants !!

Offline Steam Haulage

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #26 on: February 22, 2015, 09:50:46 AM »
Hi.
Great to see the work by steam guy willy and beam engineer. I especially like the descriptive text that both of you are providing. I have a long-time interest in beam engines but Crofton, for all it's good points provides only one approach to power. I had no idea these engines existed, although I had heard tales about the Ram Brewery.

Please keep up the good work.  :ThumbsUp:
Jerry
Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you, pigs treat you as equal.

Offline steam guy willy

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #27 on: February 22, 2015, 03:36:21 PM »
A couple of pages from the Rev Dr Lardners book 'The Steam Engine' ......Disparaging remarks about Mr Woolf! and lots of tasty pics plus pages that were never slit open !!

Offline steam guy willy

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #28 on: February 23, 2015, 01:14:22 AM »
The LP cylinder is tackled next with the cyl porting down pipe glued on. Hugh the steam jacket was used to keep the cyl steam up to temperature to keep the pressure up ,but there is no jacket cladding so not very efficient on this engine, however this is quite an early engine so everyone was a prototype, so ,I think this is correct. I never studied thermodynamics so am a bit in the dark ,like the jacket !! Mitch could tell us more i am sure............
 



Offline Steam Haulage

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Re: The Beeleigh Mill, Woolf compound engine.Maldon, Essex.
« Reply #29 on: February 23, 2015, 07:48:40 AM »
Stem Guy Willie,

Is that the Dr. (Dionysius) Lardner who entered the fracas over Box Tunnel to question Brunel's competence?

Jerry
Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you, pigs treat you as equal.

 

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