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Victorian small live steam plant.

Lester Bowman

Hot Rolled
Joined
Apr 9, 2011
Location
Modesto california USA
I finally have finished the assembly of my early steam boiler and related components resulting in a efficient and very pretty little boiler plant. Here is a short video of it operating its Simplex pump and my small vertical steam launch engine.

Antique miniature Victorian steam plant. - YouTube

Also a link to the original thread on the Simplex pump.....

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-and-history/incredibly-unique-miniature-steam-pump-315041/

The little Strenglinger governor was fitted to this launch engine and thus far has been a work in progress. I have fitted new gears and pins on the top end. The top casting was bent throwing the gears out of line. I very carefully straightened this. Next step is working downward to the valve box and rectifying the many mistakes here. No whistle yet but the steam pump finally works perfectly :)
 

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Lester:

Thank you for posting the pictures & youtube. You can be justifiably proud of your work and have created a museum-piece or heirloom. To see a working small steam plant as you have built is quite satisfying, and to watch the youtube of it running is even moreso. I like the way you wove various components and pieces including the cast "feet" from the old appliance into a Victorian steam plant.

A "correct" governor DOES make a steam plant "complete". In an old text about erecting of stationary steam engines, the author offered some advice to the effect that: "If after about the third day, people watching the progress of the erecting work are saying the man in charge does not know much, or does not know what he is doing.... install the governor.... and the people will suddenly remark about the progress being made..." This was in a text printed in 1908 and dealt with the erecting mainly of large Corliss engines. At Hanford Mills, when the steam plant is running, even if people know nothing about it, they all seem to focus on the governor, either photo'ing it, asking about it, pointing at it as they converse with their companions. A spinning properly proportioned governor does make a classic little steam plant complete.

You were able to get the right combination of boiler, engine, steam pump, and period/scale correct fittings. It's a real museum quality plant, and could have been used in a technical school of bygone years as a teaching aid. It's a fine job, for sure, and I wish you many happy years of steaming it.
 








 
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