ME BEAM ENGINE – Something to Run.

[Malcolm FarrantParticipant @malcolmfarrant93389]

I am nearing completion of this great model.

On completion I next want to make a model that the Beam Engine can drive.

Can any one give mw suggestion of wgat to make, and wher to get any necessary castings

Many thanks

Malcolm Farrant (Roskrow)

[Malcolm FarrantParticipant @malcolmfarrant93389]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

If you want to make from castings then you are probably going to be restricted to a piece of workshop machinery such as the ones done by Stuarts or PM Research in the states though I think Forrest Classics over here does some of their machine castings.

[Tony Wright 1Participant @tonywright1]

[Tony Wright 1Participant @tonywright1]

One of my simple beam engines no castings required

Best regards Tony.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Tony he wants something for the engine to run not a boiler to run it with

Edited By JasonB on 09/01/2021 16:58:01

[Tony Wright 1Participant @tonywright1]

No problem just make one without the boiler ! 😄

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[Tony Wright 1Participant @tonywright1]

Must occasionally engage brain before commenting ☺️☺️

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You do need to be careful once you start wanting things for the engine to run as it can literally run away with you. This started off as a Stuart Victoria, you can see it and a lot of the PMR machines in the video.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[CalumParticipant @calumgalleitch87969]

Have to show my ignorance here – what's the purpose of the captive rings on the overhead drive shafts in the above video?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Stopped dust, fluff etc build up on the shafts depending on what was happening in the workshop..

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

Wow! How fantastic. Details e.g., old style blueprint drawings in the office and metal stocks in the pigeon hole shelving. I think it's on a par with Pendon Museum.

Thanks for sharing video, Jason.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[Tim StevensParticipant @timstevens64731]

You could dig down to the nearest coal seam, and use your engine to pump out the water. If you really are looking for originality of purpose, that is.

Regards, Tim

Edited By Tim Stevens on 10/01/2021 18:21:23

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I did not think it was based on a pumping engine? I don't have the original Geo Gentry articles to see if anything was said

The highly geared up lay shaft and pulley would suggest it was a workshop or mill engine intended to run line shafting at a higher speed than the sedate beam could run at. If a pumping engine I would have thought that would have been driven straight off the beam as well as the small feed pump.

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Just found a mention in ME that nothing is known of the prototype but gentry took his measurements from a model in a Bermondsey engineer's office/shop presumably at the same 1.5" scale.

It seems a bit small for a mine pumping engine with a 8' 6" flywheel, most beam engines around this size in the George Watkins books are at best pumping alcohol or the odd one doing drinking water for a hospital and the likes while the rest are running line shafting. Certainly not in the same league as this sort of thing

It's a bit like the Stuart Victoria when most people think of that engine they imaging a big mill engines yet it was only a small engine with 5ft flywheel that it is based on

Edited By JasonB on 10/01/2021 19:52:19

[Former MemberParticipant @formermember12892]

[This posting has been removed]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Just on the matter of size, this is someone stood next to the beam of one of Harvey & Co's pumping engines. The ME Beam at full size is only about 9Ft tall base to top of beam. Quite a difference. As does its 100" dia cylinder compared to 15" of the ME Beam

Also this is a non rotative engine unlike the ME with its give away flywheel which makes it a rotative engine

Edited By JasonB on 10/01/2021 20:09:55

[Rob McSweeneyParticipant @robmcsweeney81205]

If you are looking for a bit of "spectacle" how about a table-top fountain?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You could plumb up the engines existing feed pump to do that on a small scale. A lot of the Heinrici hot air engines were used to power fountains

[Gerald HowarthParticipant @geraldhowarth53631]

For interest, the only information I could find on the original engine for the 1914 ME Beam Engine.

Copy of a letter appearing in Vol30, Page 334, 2 April 1914:

The History of the "M.E." Model Beam Engine.
To THE EDITOR OF The Model Engineer.
DEAR SIR, -It may interest Mr. Gentry and yourself that I can fill up the lacuna in the history of the model beam engine. In 1858, Mr. W. Farey, manager to Messrs. Bryan Donkin Bros. (since and Co.), of Bermondsey, engineers and millwrights, designed a beam engine to drive the works, replacing two old sun and planet engines of old type. Mr. Oakley then was in the erecting shop, and fitted up the engine in the engine room, and, of course, had access to the drawings. In the early sixties I was apprenticed to Messrs. Bryan Donkin & Co. as engineer and millwright and served my seven years there. During this time Mr. Oakley set up on his own account, mostly in repair work, and the model appeared in his shop window. We lads used to look at it with admiration, and model making became the vogue amongst us. That engine in THE MODEL ENGINEER carried one back to happy days fifty years ago, when the limbs were lissom and ambition loomed as high as Sirius. Messrs. Bryan Donkin & Co. made and sold only three of these engines – one at Basted, one New Hampton, and one at Roughway Paper Mills, these being noncondensing because of utilising the exhaust for heating, but the engine fitted in the works had a jet condenser, the air pump being operated by a large eccentric on the main shaft. Afterwards Bryan Donkin & Co.'s compound back to back horizontals became the engine, and the old patterns were chopped up.
The picture presented by the old beam engine (which was really efficient) brought back my youth vividly.
Bryan Donkin & Co.'s boilers were vertical, and the vacuum and steam gauges were mercurial, with tall staffs on the floats reading off a 10-ft. board scaled. Millwrights then used to go to work in tall hats and frock coats, shifting into overalls and caps in the shop, and were by training equally fit at drawing-board, pattern shop, fitting, turning, or erecting shop. The "one branch" rankers used to deride us, saying that dead donkeys and dead millwrights were never seen, because they were translated with Enoch and Balaam's colleague to Elysian fields of grass and Whatman's hot press.
I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully.
FREDK. WALKER
Cheltenham.

[Author]

Posts