VERY VERY HEAVY engineering
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Phil Pascoe
Established Member
I was in a local second hand tool place one day over hearing a conversation between two old guys. One said he was present when one of the redundant machine shops at what was Holmans was cleared out when they came across the largest micrometer he'd ever seen - 108". :shock: It was apparently the biggest cylinder bore they used.
rafezetter
Troll Hunter
Wow, thanks for posting this. I echo dzj and AndyT's sentiments wholeheartedly. Makes me wonder if this part of history should be taught in schools instead of castles and such that has no real relevence to society - maybe then children would have a better appreciation of "how things were done in grandfathers day" and be a bit less dissimisive of it all.
bugbear
Established Member
AndyT":39ihnlec said:
I don't think hope was involved. Just lots of maths, care, checking and re-checking.
They'd also (probably) done big engines before, just not THAT big.
BugBear
novocaine
Established Member
and really large tolerances and over engineered to hell so if it was a bit wobbly it was easy enough to tune out with a hammer and a few tons of lead.
bare in mind we get a similar amount of power and torque from something 1/4 of it's size now (talking steam driven), not because we've changed the laws of physics, but because we can built to tighter tolerances and get the power to where it needs to be instead of wasting it on other movement. we've learned.
, granted we don't power ships with steam engines anymore but even things like the cathedral are pretty much becoming a thing of the past.
http://gcaptain.com/emma-maersk-engine/
still stunning to see though, you can't walk round the engine house (which is still there) just the museum, which is interesting enough but doesn't give you the same feeling as walking in to a place where actual work was done, the building alone was amazing, not to mention what came out of it.
having spent a fair bit of time on massive shipyards (only 1 or 2 in this country) it gives you an appreciation of how big these things are and were.
bare in mind we get a similar amount of power and torque from something 1/4 of it's size now (talking steam driven), not because we've changed the laws of physics, but because we can built to tighter tolerances and get the power to where it needs to be instead of wasting it on other movement. we've learned.
, granted we don't power ships with steam engines anymore but even things like the cathedral are pretty much becoming a thing of the past. http://gcaptain.com/emma-maersk-engine/
still stunning to see though, you can't walk round the engine house (which is still there) just the museum, which is interesting enough but doesn't give you the same feeling as walking in to a place where actual work was done, the building alone was amazing, not to mention what came out of it.
having spent a fair bit of time on massive shipyards (only 1 or 2 in this country) it gives you an appreciation of how big these things are and were.
Sheffield Tony
Ghost of the disenchanted
Super pictures Andy. I love this heavy engineering. I also marvel at the composure of the machinist on their crankshaft lathe, though the still picture doesn't quite capture it, that mass of metal whizzing past your ear must be quite unnerving.
selectortone
Still waking up not dead in the morning
That really is engineering on a heroic scale. Thanks for posting. The men building those engines could have been crushed like bugs at any moment. It's sobering to think that two of those Olympic class ships were tragically lost at sea - Titanic in the North Atlantic and Brittanic in the Mediterranean.
CHJ
Established Member
Just think about the years of skill needed to get the shrinkage dimensions right for the pattern makers and the casting floor folks who could handle the mould making and pouring.AndyT":a1ocaitx said:
whiskywill
Established Member
And for the modern version, watch this from 48 minutes onwards. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... -the-world
graduate_owner
Established Member
I so admire the skill of those workers, from design through to end products. Quite humbling really.
K
K
AES
Established Member
Thanks for posting, toolsnthat, absolutely fascinating. Knowing a bit about gas turbines for aeroplanes I found the turbine pictures especially interesting - I "knew" that ship building requires big 'ammers n spanners, but those things are just ridiculous (even if inefficient by today's standards).
BTW I agree with the previous poster about this stuff being taught in schools - if we shed a bit more light on this sort of history, on what the UK WAS capable of, and at least some of the reasons why we no longer do much of it, then perhaps, just perhaps, we may be turning out a new generation of kids with a better view of engineering and making in general (not to mention the vague chance of managers with a better appreciation of reality and less of office politics). That would give UK a better (an even better?) post-Brexit chance. (NOT being political here - it's against Forum rules!!).
AES
P.S. I appreciate that those lathes would only have been turning at couple of revs/week (!) but just think about all the forces involved - e.g. the tip of the lathe tool (and I wouldn't like to try and regrind one of those when it lost its edge! :shock:
BTW I agree with the previous poster about this stuff being taught in schools - if we shed a bit more light on this sort of history, on what the UK WAS capable of, and at least some of the reasons why we no longer do much of it, then perhaps, just perhaps, we may be turning out a new generation of kids with a better view of engineering and making in general (not to mention the vague chance of managers with a better appreciation of reality and less of office politics). That would give UK a better (an even better?) post-Brexit chance. (NOT being political here - it's against Forum rules!!).
AES
P.S. I appreciate that those lathes would only have been turning at couple of revs/week (!) but just think about all the forces involved - e.g. the tip of the lathe tool (and I wouldn't like to try and regrind one of those when it lost its edge! :shock:
CHJ
Established Member
Just imagine swinging one of those crankshafts on the lathe to see if you've got it balanced before switching on.
AES
Established Member
Yeah CHJ (or rather "No thanks CHJ").
(Was taught to always rotate the job by hand after set up and before switching on to check all clearances OK before switching on. Wonder what those blokes did?)
AES
(Was taught to always rotate the job by hand after set up and before switching on to check all clearances OK before switching on. Wonder what those blokes did?)
AES
Highly geared electric motors nowadays for large marine engines.AES":2bx3j1t4 said:
BTW, with a Switzerland address, I suppose you spotted that the "original" diesel shown earlier in the programme was made by Sulzer - a Swiss company based in Winterthur and one of the biggest manufacturers of large marine diesels despite being landlocked.
Duncan
AES
Established Member
Yes Duncan, I did notice that. Sulzer is a well known name here (though like so many others, it's just a shadow of its former self I believe).
Did you know that Sulzer is the company credited with being 1st in the world to successfully supply variable pitch propellers for ships? Or that they produced the world's 1st artificial ice rink? There's a museum in their home town (Winterthur, just as you say) called Technorama which has displays of some of their stuff (and a lot of other interesting stuff too).
Apparently Sulzer also supplied diesel engines to British Railways during the early part of dieselisation; assembled gas turbine engines (under licence from Snecma) for the Swiss Air Force Mirage fighters; and have/had (?) a locomotive works in Winterthur where they fairly recently built a brand new oil-fired steam loco for a narrow gauge rack & pinion railway in, I think, Austria.
Bit different to chocolates and cuckoo clocks (which are anyway German - Black Forest)
Thread drift or what!
AES
Did you know that Sulzer is the company credited with being 1st in the world to successfully supply variable pitch propellers for ships? Or that they produced the world's 1st artificial ice rink? There's a museum in their home town (Winterthur, just as you say) called Technorama which has displays of some of their stuff (and a lot of other interesting stuff too).
Apparently Sulzer also supplied diesel engines to British Railways during the early part of dieselisation; assembled gas turbine engines (under licence from Snecma) for the Swiss Air Force Mirage fighters; and have/had (?) a locomotive works in Winterthur where they fairly recently built a brand new oil-fired steam loco for a narrow gauge rack & pinion railway in, I think, Austria.
Bit different to chocolates and cuckoo clocks (which are anyway German - Black Forest)
Thread drift or what!
AES
RossJarvis
Established Member
Up until 5 years ago I was still teaching 14 year olds and above to do the same tasks, although on a much smaller scale. My best students were able to turn bearings to within .02mm with 40 year old lathes. They could press and machine crankshafts and not a single student, male or female failed to make a piston engine which didn't work. The biggest and most depressing thing is that although employers say they are are crying out for it and that kids with no GCSE's could learn to work to those tolerances, the Educational system and employment market (despite what it says) has no interest in supporting this sort of skill. The only thing the system is interested in is money. The most powerful person in my college (who was the accountant!!!!) told me we couldn't afford to run 12 lathes for 12 students. We needed to run 8 for 16. "why on earth can't they share" and at the same time "you can teach two groups who started at different times at the same time" along with "you don't need a technician, you can do all the maintenance at the same time as teaching". Strangely enough, since I finally left due to stress, several of the lathes and the mill (an imperial Bridgeport) have ceased to work.
The shame is this country has lost it's technical base and it can't and doesn't deserve to get it back. The biggest shame is that out of all my students, one or two had too many issues to deal with, a few just weren't interested but most of them would have been bloody marvellous in a proper workshop, even though they had no GCSEs, but they couldn't progress through the system because the system itself isn't designed for them. Colleges cannot train CNC operatives past the bare basics and companies rarely want to put the effort in themselves (though there are some marvellous exceptions). There are very few companies who actually want any properly skilled manual operatives.
I had an offer from one firm for a student, so I sent him two, and as an afterthought I sent him a well meaning but functionally dead third. They accepted the third, probably because he was local and white. The Zimbabwean who was my second best student ever and the Zimbabwean who was in need of motivation didn't get a look in!
The shame is this country has lost it's technical base and it can't and doesn't deserve to get it back. The biggest shame is that out of all my students, one or two had too many issues to deal with, a few just weren't interested but most of them would have been bloody marvellous in a proper workshop, even though they had no GCSEs, but they couldn't progress through the system because the system itself isn't designed for them. Colleges cannot train CNC operatives past the bare basics and companies rarely want to put the effort in themselves (though there are some marvellous exceptions). There are very few companies who actually want any properly skilled manual operatives.
I had an offer from one firm for a student, so I sent him two, and as an afterthought I sent him a well meaning but functionally dead third. They accepted the third, probably because he was local and white. The Zimbabwean who was my second best student ever and the Zimbabwean who was in need of motivation didn't get a look in!
stuartpaul
Established Member
Never really thought about how they built this sort of thing before, - fascinating stuff. thanks for posting.
Inching button? Used to be quite a common switch for set up and maintenance.
AES":l4smg8ch said:Yeah CHJ (or rather "No thanks CHJ").
(Was taught to always rotate the job by hand after set up and before switching on to check all clearances OK before switching on. Wonder what those blokes did?)
AES
Inching button? Used to be quite a common switch for set up and maintenance.
