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Peter Selby kindly sent me these photos of a solid-looking shaper he’d seen in New Zealand. The first photos I’ve seen of a machine by Dempster, Moore & Co Ltd of Glasgow. No doubt Cutting Oil Mac can tell us more.

There’s an advert in Grace’s Guide which shows a lathe and mentions that they specialised in equipment for ships (a large proportion of the world’s ships were made in Glasgow at that time):-

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/wiki/Im...b_Dempster.jpg

What was the motion of the ram ? , i recall the Whitworth quick return, ie, the long arc gave the cutting stroke, the short arc the quick return, were there other variations of this ?

Todays posting by Asquith, of the shaping machine, by the late firm of Dempster Moore & Co, has inspired me to go upstairs, and have a quick rummage through "The Sacred Scrolls", and open my Dempster Moore Catalogue, A most fine tome, 6th edition giving their registered office as 49 Robertson Street glasgow, What age my catalogue is i dont know, but it is about the first world war era, Dempsters started in Robertson St in 1873. In my younger days Robertson St. was worth walking down, just to see the rather old fashioned but most handsome shop fronts of the various machine dealers, tool dealers, power transmission specialists, (Stephen &Smith) and an old firm Brown &Co who supplied steam packing in all sort of configurations, there was another concern, Sadly the grey matter, cant recall the name of this firm, but in the window, was a most intriguing display of boiler steam fittings set up on a wooden cornish boiler front plate, with its imitation brick side walls, and also various valves etc laid out tastefully in the window to tempt any engineer who would have need of such perquisites !
At the period of which, i allude to, the space where Dempster Moore had been established, and traded from for many years was at this period occupied from that number to 63 Robertson St by Buck & Hickman, What a wonderfull old building that was, absolutely breathed chareacter, The only other outfit which dealt in tools and one felt the same atmosphere in my estimation, was the late old established ironmongers concern of Thomas Limond & Son, High St Ayr, where as a youngster i bought my first tools, when i started my apprenticeship, Kindly old Thomas Limond (The third i think) told me that day, "young man, You are most priviledged to be starting an apprenticeship, as a moulder, especially in the works of A.&J Hunter"- good luck in your chosen field" However fast forward a year and a half, and my parents changing location, found me walking down Robertson St, in that most important industrial city, and changed to the trade of an apprentice brass moulder.
Stop rambling Mac!- back to this old building of the firm of Buck & Hickman, It was a cast iron building with the most anteduluvian hand operated overhead travelling crane, no doubt, a relic of the days of Dempster Moore
At the bottom of Robertson St. is the most elegant offices of The Clyde Port Authority, adorned on the turret, with a most stern looking King Neptune, still guarding the river to this day, It is now called the Clyde Port Authority
At the bottom of Robertson St. is Clyde St, in those days the side of a most busy waterway, on the right hand side of which further down to the Finnieston area, still a great conurbation, of large engineering concerns, possibly the biggest being the big marine Diesel Engine works of "Hassle & Worry" oops silly me! It is Harland & Wolfe
In the early 1800/s Finnieston, and Cranstonhill, had a greater density of brass foundries than even Birmingham had which must have been quite something
However dear readers, before you all fall asleep with my ditty, i remember now, the post is about Dempster Moore This firm moved, over to the South side of the river after the first world war to the then recently shut down St. Andrews power station which had belonged to the old Glasgow Corporation electricity department, from what i can gather, the only decent thing about this set up was the fine red brick building, still with us at the top of Eglinton Street at the Eglinton Toll, I feel it was built to be near the Copelawhill Tramway Depot , What a fine works that was, After Dempsters vacated the works, for some obscure reason just before world war two, It became The Glasgow Numerical Printing Works Still St Andrews Works, and printed the millions of tram & bus tickets
This part of the city was in those days reasonably respectable, One had by and large left the rather run down(in parts only) Gorbals district behind, Soon to be demolished good and bad areas Brave New World ! Yes the Eglinton toll had a lot of charm with possibly one of Britains most respectable & fine dance halls The Plaza And at night late on in the evening one if they were want to hang around couldhear the groans of a pair of very heavily loaded traction motors, this sound coming from the "Set Car" leaving Copelaw works pulling its loaded wagons of causey sets(very heavy)and the workers bothy, and heavy compressor to power the "Paddys Motor bikes" used to dig up the roads with this maintenance team of nocturnal &skilled trackworkers whose province was all over the cities vast tram network.
Dempster Moore moved eventually to Bonnybridge in Stirlingshire well out of the industrial belt, the reason for this plan really alludes me, Somehow or other, i believe the name St. Andrews Works followed them and after the second world war about 1948 or there abouts they withered on the vine
A most amusing story was told to me many years ago, by Mr Emery, the late director of Clifton &Baird, During the last great war, the various firms of machine tool manufacturers on the Clyde area, were engaged heavily on the manufacture of machine tools for the Russian government, and one Monday afternoon into his office arrived one of the Russian machine tool inspectors, who were based and lived in Johnstone, He according to this old director, was a pretty reasonable soul, He said "William For Gods sake pour me a whisky" which he did , The Russian swallowed it and said "What a narrow eacape i have had" It would seem he had the previous week been out at Dempster Moores seeing a batch of geared head lathes being assembled, everything seemed O.K. Our intrepid inspector went back, on the Monday morning to see the final commisioning run check final alignments etc
All seemed well He asked for the lathes to be started up , he tried his various feeds & speeds etc, and was ready to sign them off and was packing up to leave, when each lathe gave a horrid screech simultaneously and seized up, No oil in the headstock! The poor guy said "I would have been charged with Sabotage & treason, Uncle Joe would have had me and my family shot!"
As regards the range of shapers of a good quality made by Dempster Moore in those days, they manufactured a small 8"stroke hand or power operated (cone pulleys) piller pattern machine bigger piller machines through to the travelling head shapers from 16"stroke x 6 foot bed up to a big double head 30" stroke x 10 foot bed machine weighing 240 cwts, Murray & Paterson had an enormous shaper of this class which had a longer bed , and at one time this machine was greatly used in the machining out of the inside of rolling mill housings , After the sides were planed on the big English Low Moore planing machine, they were set up side on on a big floorplate on front of the shaper ,one side planed inside, turned over, and ditto for the other inside face, this is the face the roll bearings slide on, This was athird year apprentices task in those far of days, This big machine was scrapped about 1968
Also Dempster Moore manufactured a range of ordinary double column planing machines, a range of side planers, lathes ,slotting machines, bolt screwing machines etc, -- You want it we made it guv!

Mac

I hoped the title of the thread would lure you out. Your reminiscences are worth their weight in gold. Posterity will thank you for this, one day in the far-off future.

I must get round to copying your information to paper.

In the particular case of Dempster, Moore & Co., I’d never heard of them until Mr Selby sent me the photo, and found very little of relevance on the internet. Yet clearly they were quite an important firm. No doubt quite a few ship’s engineers blessed their efforts in times of crisis, not to mention some beleaguered Russians in WW2.

To digress from Dempster and Moore, you mentioned Cranstonhill, and I came across this name very recently when looking at photos I’d taken of old machinery in New Zealand. It was on an odd-looking steam machine bearing the nameplate of Alexr Chaplin of Cranstonhill Engine Works, Glasgow. Peter S cleverly deduced that it was the remains of a combined steam winch and variable stoke pump, a deduction subsequently confirmed by finding an engraving of such a machine in Grace’s Guide. I have since done a bit more digging and found some online catalogues on the invaluable MERL/Reading University website. Here’s the type of machine:-

http://www.rhc.rdg.ac.uk/olib/images...2_b239/035.jpg

Links to the rest of the catalogue:-

http://www.rhc.rdg.ac.uk/webview?ses...251211&hitno=1

Other Chaplin catalogues:-

http://www.reading.ac.uk/merl/nof/vi...plin+%26+steam

Regarding the Harland & Woolff engine works that you mentioned, was there any connection between this and the Lancefield works, subject of a recent Peter S posting?

Hi Asquith,
I must start by correcting an error which crept into my script, If one turned right at the bottom of robertson Street, One would find themselves in the Broomielaw, silly me , i was confusing it in my brain, with the smaller quey up on Clyde St, formerly with its three George Russell cranes, which with their grabs were frequently unloading lime, gravel, whin etc from Gardners steam ships, But back to Broomielaw, the big Diesel engine works of Harlands, was a fine red brick construction, very similar in appearance to the handsome buildings, constructed by the firm, along the river Laggan in Belfast, The last time i was over there, i thought how shabby they were looking, How the mighty has fallen
I would be wrong if i contemplated on what was in the site of Harlands at Finnieston before its construction,in the early years of the last century
Further along from Harlands until not too many years ago, was the Baltic mills of Snodgrass & Co which had a nice exterior also, having on its facade, moulded bricks carrying the legend in Codestone "Baltic Flour Mills - William Snodgrass & Co" It is now a "nice block of flats!" No chance of incorporating the fine facade that would be too clever to think outside the box
When i looked at your illustration of the Chaplin steam hoist engine &pump combined, two things spring to mind firstly the similarities of the similar type of combined boiler and engines constructed by George Russell & Co of Motherwell, When George Russell was 22 years of age,he was chief draughtsman for Alexander Chaplin And secondly, it looks very much like a small sinking engine for shaft work, I am not certain if any gold mining was carried out in New Zealand, if that was the case such an engine could easily have been the main winding & pumping engine, And ditto if there was a shallow outcrop of coal, the same would apply, When as a youngster, i lived in Ayrshire there was quite near my home, a small beam engine, which had been abandoned since the year i was born 1939, It was of a similar configuration, and the drums could be de-clutched, and the pump rods attached to the shaft, and it would spend all night shift drawing water
However Chaplins built some big engines and cranes, the two big overhead steam driven travellers in Fullerton Hodgart & Barclays foundry. were 60 ton Chaplins, they also built, steam navvys, & steam travelling cranes, Electric overhead cranes, were built also until the mid 1920/s, A.F. Craig had a few, they were nice machines, The goodwill of Chaplins, plus the drawings etc, went to Herbert Morris & Co of Loughborough , Wonder where they are now? Somehow or other something in my mind tells me Chaplins crane factory might have been over on the South side of the river in Govan but on that one the jury is still out.
In a recent posting we had an illustration of Jumbo, the big slotting machine in Lancefield foundry, This establishment was later to become David Rowan & Co marine engine builders Also in this area was another ancient firm Napiers who built steam windlasses and other miscellaneous deck machinery, I remember the factory building lying empty for many years, At the biginning of this year saw the closure of another well known Scottish marine engineering concern, The Reid Gear Co of Linwood, founded in the early years of the last century(I think 1906) by Mr Thomas Hart Reid, They were taken over in the mid 1960/s by Thomas Reid & Co of Cotton Street Paisley, strange to say no family tie up This old and venerable concern was begun in the mid 1850/s by Mr Thomas Reid, and due to the changing pattern of marine engineering has now closed , Reids were a firm held in high regard for the quality of the ships deck machinery produced over the years steering gear of a most high order being turned out, The bridge gear being finished to a most exacting standard of care and appearance, With this sad decline, Now Britain has no manufacturers of marine winches or steering gear left
Back to Robertson Street, Everyone has no doubt came across the name of Howden International who began in Robertson Street as Howden &Robertson, manufacturers of machine tools and bolt, rivet, hut forging machinery, It would seem James Howden wanted to get back to his trade of marine engine building and withdrew from the firm, and moved over to Scotland Street to form James Howden & Co builders of high speed engines, Wallsend Howden oil burners etc, and have now risen to being an internationally renowned concern.
Bodger asked on other types of quick return motion for shapers, slotting machinery etc, One which springs to mind, is Shanks patent elliptical gear drive in which the gearing is built where a small gear engages one part of a geared ellipse,and when it is on the last two or three teeth, a large gear engages with a larger dia , geared quadrant thus giving a quick return.

It looks like the shaper is in a Machine Tool Dealers warehouse. Is anyone in New Zealand going to step in and save her? It is a very nice looking shaper. If I were in New Zealand, and the price was right, I would snap it up.

Rob