Engines at the London Science Museum

[smfr]

I recently had a couple of spare hours in London, and went to the Science Museum to check out the engine models. There's some great stuff there! Most of it is in the Energy Hall, and there are lots of marine engines up on the third floor. What's neat is that I saw several kinds of engines with features that I've never seen before!

Here are some shots:

A vertical compound engine, with a very odd arrangement of cylinders:



A beautifully executed beam engine. I love the 4-ball governor, arranged under the main supports:



Another beam engine, with governor in the same location:



An "upside-down" beam engine. Never seen one with this arrangement before!



A nice Corliss-valve mill engine:



A lovely two-cylinder oscillating cylinder marine engine:



Another marine engine. Note the lack of a central piston rod; instead, each cylinder has two rods. This allows for the crank to be closer to the end of the cylinder:



I've been looking around for a book with pictures and/or plans of various kinds of engines like these, but haven't found anything. Does anyone know of a book like this?

Simon

 

[tel]

Beautiful engines, those. Can't help with books or plans, but I too would be interested!

 

[peatoluser]

here's a video I found on youtube showing some more of the models on display.
It's definitely whetted the appetite for a return visit! and this time with a camera and no 7 year old dragging me round making me miss all the best bits!
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1JXl4bWQW4[/ame]
I know what you mean about wanting to have a go at trying to build one.

Plans for a brass model of a gorgon type engine exist (shown early on in the video). they're in a German book called dampf 12. It is only loosely based on gorgon - the model has stephensons link gear whereas gorgon had Seawards own patented valve system. I have a copy . can't read German but the drawings are clear enough on their own to be able to build a model.
let me know if you want more details.

for a good book with plenty of clear line drawings of steam engines , there's this one -
again in German - makes me want to learn to read German because it appears to be so good,
http://www.digitalis.uni-koeln.de/Matschossd/matschossd_index.html

It's been mentioned before on this site but worth re-mentioning.


yours
peter