As you all know, while showing our engines, we often hear, "What does it do?" "Well, it goes round and round, up and down." This is generally accompanied by, "Oh, that's nice." Also accompanied by sad or puzzled looks."
While working on the 1/4 horse, I've been thinking about actually having it do some work. Since it's not a scaled-down engine but, a reasonably accurate, full-size version of the Strelinger vertical, it should be able to do something.
I've seen the usual: turning a corn or coffee grinder, running a fan, operating a scale model machine shop. At Cabin Fever, a hit and miss was running a small compressor which supplied pressure to run an air/steam engine.
Somewhere I read, (don't remember where) that many Strelinger 1/4 horse verticals were used to power sewing machines in garment factories. The foot treadle was removed and a pulley attached to connect a leather belt to the steam engine. Steam powered line shafts were also used but, the "one engine for one machine" concept was an improvement in productivity as each operator could vary the machine speed as needed.
Steam-powered sewing machine designed by C T Judkin of Manchester in use at Holloway & Co 's clothing factory, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
As a side note, the White Sewing Machine Company introduced the White Steam Car in 1900 but never made a steam sewing machine.
Strangely, sewing machines had also been powered by dogs.
"Patents from the 19th century give us images of treadmills, carousels, and massive hamster wheels that enabled dogs to power sewing machines, mills, grindstones, lathes, butter churns, blacksmith's bellows, and water pumps. In England, a special breed of dog, the Turnspit Dog, was bred with a long body and short legs perfect for running a turnspit for roasting meat." Pay attention here, Cletus.
But, not wishing to incur the wrath of the SPCA, let's return to the steam-powered sewing machine.
After calling a friend who is retired after many years in the garment industry, I learned that the actual sewing machine is called the "head" and was mounted over the treadle base. Since the treadle wouldn't be used, I concentrated on the heads.
Now, I'm awaiting Ritchie to deliver this "correct to the period" head which was cheaper than a decent Center-cutting End Mill.
This will be the next project once the 1/4 horse is completed.
Now, all I have to do is convince Zee to use his spinning wheel to produce the hundreds of yards of thread I'll need.
Stay tuned.