AAB,
Thanks for posting the pictures. I’d like to see the photos you took of the other machinery at the mine.
The book ‘The Cornish Beam Engine’ recommended by Peter S is indeed a fascinating read. Some interesting photos, too, including one of a toff standing inside a 12 ft diameter beam engine cylinder made by Harveys of Hayle, Cornwall, for the Cruquuis pumping engine in Holland. There’s a also an intriguing photo taken during the demolition of Harvey’s works, showing a very large lathe spindle and faceplate supported by a crane. The scale is indicated by the fact that six men are standing on the horizontal spindle, and the faceplate must be 18 ft diameter.
Some Cornish mines had shafts that weren’t vertical, and in some cases not even straight, so the pump rods had to negotiate changes in direction. In some cases they used rocking levers in the shafts to support the rod at changes in direction.
One particularly unusual arrangement was adopted for a Cornish mine in the 1830s. The mineshaft was sunk from a reef offshore. The engine house was 200 yards away on the mainland, and the engine drove the water pump rods by a series of horizontal rods supported on iron sheave wheels on a trestle bridge, connected to the vertical rods by a bell crank.
The mines placed very heavy reliance on the single engine-driven pump to prevent the mine flooding, and reliability was essential. The book describes how pistons which used packing of hemp and tallow, needed attention at least every 6 - 8 weeks. At the oddly-named Ting Tang mine in Cornwall, the water pump could only be stopped for a maximum of 1 hr 40 mins, giving little opportunity for the cylinder to cool before the men went inside to repack the piston. ‘It was a bitter hot job in the bottom cylinder, with manholes for the men to get in; also they had in some cases to get a pair of blacksmith’s bellows to blow cold air on them to pack the piston it was so hot ….. they were nearly roasted’.
Surprisingly, considering that the engines were pumping water, one of the major problems was shortage of suitable fresh water for the boilers. At ‘Great Wheal Busy’ mine in the 1850s, the water was so acidic that every year four of the 24 boilers had to be replaced due to corrosion.
Most of the engines in Cornwall were made locally, but they also exported many engines, new and secondhand. To take the thread back to Australia, the book describes how an engine was sent to Burra Burra mine in S Australia, 100 miles inland, the 40 ton beam being hauled on a special carriage by a team of 72 bullocks on unmade roads (1852). Engines sent to S America had more difficult journeys, including crossing mountain ranges 10,000 feet high. The beam for one engine in the Andes is said to have taken 2 years to reach its destination.
There’s some interesting stuff in this thread, including a photo of a ’man engine’:-
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/11/1846.html?
Here’s a photo showing the high density of engine houses in Cornwall:-
A pity they didn't mine coal here ......
Maintaining the balance-bob by candle light
Candles on the men's hats
Don't go down the mine, Daddy
Looking down at the pump's sump: hot, wet, dark