What's new
What's new

Industrial Revelution -- Sugar production with 1908 machinery

Tom,
Thanks For posting the link to the video .
I skipped through the video but will go back and view it in full later.
I noticed several pieces of machinery that were similar to some shown in other older threads on this forum .
For those who weren’t around back then a forum search for sugar machinery will turn up several threads.
I’m not sure of the pictures will be available in all of them .
I posted a link to this book A treatise on sugar machinery : Nicholas Procter Burgh : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
in these threads ,
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...e-mill-cuba-328068/?highlight=Sugar+Machinery

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...arge-photos-226567/?highlight=Sugar+Machinery
I noticed a small Bellis and Morcrom engine in some of the video footage .
There are a few older threads about them also .
Her is one.
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...lliss-morcom-website-239195/?highlight=Bellis
Regards,
Jim
 
The one surprise to me is the lack of Corliss valve engines.

Judging from the number of workers, that facility must be part of a full employment program.

Tom
 
Wow brings back some memories. MY family had a mill operating up until 2005. Ive posted pics of what's left of the machine shop on here before which is a Cincinnati Bickford Radial Drill, a Rockford hydraulic shaper, and two Lineshaft Driven lathes.

Cinclare Plantation - Town of Brusly

The sugar production in that video was not far off from what was still being used in 2005. The biggest differences was that for every steam engine you saw, we had an electric motor.
The gigantic gears and rollers are still in use today at all mills and there's even a connection between those giant gears and the original panama canal locks if you want to go down that rabbit hole.
We did use the Bagasse to produce our own electricity though but it was stoked by Natural Gas and not wood as seen in the video. Baggasse has too much moisture to burn hot enough to efficiently make steam on its own.
Watching the cookers inspect the molasses sugar crystals form in the microscope brought back memories. That is a very specialized trade and was performed by Hispanic workers who travel the world to different grinding seasons doing this. Many did not speak English very well but they always got a kick of showing me as a kid the glass slides and giving me sugarhouse coffee which they made all day long on a steam pipe in an old drip pot.
We also never bagged our sugar, it was piled in a warehouse and loaded into dump bed trailers where it was taken to the refinery in St John Parish and turned into Brown and White sugar.
Ours and this mill made what's called Raw sugar which is not sold in stores. Even if you buy that "sugar in the Raw" its not true raw sugar which has a little bitter taste to it.

All our equipment was sold to Alma sugar mill which they used to expand and is still in use.
You can find videos of Alma and Cora Texas in operation and see the "modern" production of raw sugar. I think Mike Rowe did a Dirty Jobs episode at Cora Texas as well.
 








 
Back
Top