Stuart Vertical Engines – The real history ?

[DoddyParticipant @doddy]

Stuart Vertical Engines – The real history – Where did the design come from

[DoddyParticipant @doddy]

As a beginner in model engineering thought it would be good to start with a basic osillating steam engine but then move onto something like a Stuart V10 vertical engine – I also am starting to discover the joy of our British engineering heritage – so any infomation as to the REAL steam engines as modeled would of great intrest – so where are the real ones – any info much appreciated

[Frank DolmanParticipant @frankdolman72357]

   There are preserved, working, steam engines all over the country.  Many of us

have favourites, so where are you.  Someone will have a recommendation

within a few miles of your home.

[DoddyParticipant @doddy]

A good selection …http://www.prestonservices.co.uk/stationary.htm

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I recently posted pictures of couple of full size engines in my albums – even the models  are real engines

 

This Tangye engine at the Black Country Museum is not too far from a Stuart 10V at all!

 

There are truckloads of engine about, if you look

 

[DoddyParticipant @doddy]

Here’s mine

 

and here’s a real look a like at Beamish

 

[Ramon WilsonParticipant @ramonwilson3]

Nice work on the Score so far David.

 

I don’t know where you are in the country but for your interest and others there is a very good steam museum dedicated to stationary engines in Norfolk – The Forncett Industrial Steam Museum. A quick Google will find it. They run most of their engines on their steaming days which is usually the first Sunday in the month May to November. The next event coincides with their annual Model Engineers Day which has been running for some fourteen years or so. It’s an excellent museum with several impressive engines and a good tea room too!

 

Regards – Ramon

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

The Stuart engines are not true scale replicas of any particular prototype, however they are very much in keeping with the sort of engines that were produced in great quantities all over the place. That does mean that you can feel free to embellish them in any reasonable way that takes your fancy. It is quite probable that someone somewhere built an engine with the feature you decide to add.

 

I did the same thing as you are planning David,  a set of 10V castings came with my Unimat 3 back when that was a new machine on the market. I wan’t game to start straight into it straight away so made a simple double acting oscillator first, then made the 10V. That was a metric 10V, which meant that you do not get the screws and nuts, you just get lengths of hex rod and you make your own. (I bet lots of guys here never even knew there was such a thing as a metric 10V!)

 

One of the more experienced model engineers in our club just did some work on a Score for someone, and said afterwards that he did not think that these were really an engine for a beginner. Actually they are not too bad, although a slightly larger engine would be easier, assuming you have a machine big enough to cope. (Not a Unimat!) I took about six months of evening spare time to machine up the 10V, then another six months to build a set of reversing gear from scratch, eg to the Stuart geometry but not using any Stuart parts. The bored head is quite a good feature, since provided you machine the top of the column and its bore at the same setting, and then do the same with the bottom end of the cylinder it pretty well has to line up. (This assumes you make the bottom cover to a constant thickness.) With the open column type of engine like the Stuart number 1, it is much harder to be sure that the crosshead and the cylinder are aligned properly.

 

regards

John

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

The 10H looks good. One day I will take apart my 10V and finish it nicely – one day

 

“The Stuart engines are not true scale replicas of any particular prototype”.

 

Perhaps not strictly true – the Stuart No.1 is a scale model of a Stuart No1 at 12″ to the foot.  Several of the other engines are not ‘models’ in the true sense  – the Sirius was made as a power plant for fast hydroplane models, and ended up powering steam generator sets for spies and the French resistance. The Compound Launch is a full size power plant for small boats. There are others that can be xpected to do a ‘job of work’.

 

E.T. Westbury came up with the idea of ‘utility steam engines’ that were small, but not models of prototypes. With unicorn he admitted that replicating a full-size engine was a job of work

 

Neil

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

If you introduce recursion then there is a danger that the loop will never terminate. If the Stuart #1 is to be an exact scale model of itself how do you build the first one? Even though we often say something is a 12″ to the foot replica of itself, it is not really a very meaningful sentence.

 

The small engines that are intended for a job of work are in fact  small utility engines, not scale models.

 

The compound launch engine as I understand it is actually a model sized engine, (5 and a half inches high) however the Stuart 6A is a similar sort of engine that is big enough for a modest steam launch. The 5A is another engine that is solid enough and big enough for a small boat. The number 1 has the same bore and stroke, but is not suitable for heavy work since its proportions, especially the bottom end journal sizes, are not really up to heavy duty. It is built to look like a scale model of a full size engine. I suppose that makes it what some would call “free lance scale”, which is probably an oxymoron but most people would understand what is meant…a model of something that might have been rather than something that actually  was built. I’m not knocking them for this, I have built several and really like them. (10 V, 2 Number 1’s, a double 10 and a  Stuart lathe.)

 

ETW was of course right, a true scale replica is quite hard, since all the tiny bits on the real thing get really tiny in a model. The bigger the engine, the harder it tends to get, since there tend to be some small parts somewhere in there that get really difficult to make, governors for instance. Of course part of the art is knowing what it is reasonable to omit, and some bits like governors don’t necessarily need to work fully.

 

regards

John

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

some bits like governors don’t necessarily need to work fully.

 

I’m stalled half-way through Tubal Cain’s Lady Stephanie for no good reason. It fascinates me that his working governor is operated by a pair of bevel gears and it has a belt that goes through a 90-degree bend. It is fairly easy to see  how it could be made to work with just the belt by adding a twist to it.

 

I copied the governor valve he uses for this engine for another one; I can report it works perfectly with the one proviso – it doesn’t make any impact on the speed of the engine

 

Neil

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

I haven’t put a governor on any of mine, but have understood that although you can generally get the balls to fly out it is pretty hard to get them to control the engine fully. This is due partly to stiction in spindles and glands.

On the other hand, I was involved in the restoration of the full size beam engine here in Auckland and once it was operating and we were able to play with things, we concluded that the governor was mainly there as overspeed protection, since it didn’t seem possible to get the governor to control the engine at a reasonable speed. In service the engine would always have been pumping against a steady head, so a simple throttle setting would have given a steady speed. If a pipe broke maybe the governor would have stopped the engine going too fast, although I would not bank on it myself.

 

I would hate to confess how many half finished projects I have lying around, often stalled becaue I came to something I did not know how to do, then got involved in something else. Sometimes they get dragged out and a bit more gets done, and often I have forgotten what the problem was.

 

regards

John

[Eric LougheedParticipant @ericlougheed54619]

Would someone please advise this novice on how to set-up the Stuart 10H soleplate for machining its base?

The current articles in ME are very lagardly in getting to ‘horizontal’ issues, and the Stuart book ‘constructing…..’ makes only scarce mention of the horizontal model.

Eric Lougheed

Greenock 

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Stick the base in a bench vice.

Grab a large file.

File off the lumps.

Blacken the bottom with a felt tip.

Rub on a sheet of wet and dry on a flat surface.

File away shiny spots.

Blacken the bottom.

Rub on (continue etc).

Eventually it will be flat and shiny all over.

Should only take a few minutes.

Quicker than setting up in the mill.

regards David

 

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi John,

 

I have a book “Power from Steam – a history of the stationary steam engine” by Richard L. Hills. He explores the theory of the governor in some detail. The orignal ‘watt governor’ worked beat around 3-50 rpm, and never above about 100rpm. “It could require variations in speed of around 15-40 per cent to make it work.”

 

This seems to match up with your experience. He describes improvements culminating in Porter’s counterweighted design which worked at about 300rpm. Porter claimed it could limit speed variation to between 3 and 5 per cent.

 

He describes other approaches including cranked governor rods and spring loaded mechanisms. He finishes with the Lumb regulator which had a totally different way of working – opposing ratchets that wound the throttle one way or the other – acheiving control better than 3% whilst also allowing optimum power and efficiency to be delivered at a range of speeds – earlier governors were optimised for a single speed.

 

Neil

[Bill StarlingParticipant @billstarling10428]

Not sure if I’m saying the right thing in the right place, but nothing venture … As a ‘late starting’ newcomer to the wonderful world of model engineering I’ve been reading, enjoying and learning from this forum for some time. I’d like to thank all you who contribute to/run the site. (When do some of you find time for engineering?) It makes me feel part of a community and I find it hard to take in that we are spread over the entire globe. I’ve been prompted to write by my delight in finding a reference to my own corner of Norfolk (England) in this thread on 12^th September. I’m only a few miles from the Forncett Industrial Steam Museum (http://www.forncettsteammuseum.co.uk) – where, incidentally, there is a display case of historic model engines. If any of you go to the Model Engineer’s Day there on 3^rd October, please come and say hello. I’ll be near those models promoting the SMEE course for beginners like me. Bill.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hello Bill,

 

ME run the site,folks like me are just throwing in their happen’eth worth – if it helps more than it misleads that’s a good thing!

 

Broiwsing on the site is an alternative to going in the workshop – mine is pretty clogged up at the moment (there’s a bass amp and speaker stack the size of desperate Dan in the middle of it right now !), mind you I’ve got teh afternopon of from household/garden duties so…

 

Neil

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