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karlelden
Regular Member


78 Posts
Posted -  21/01/2007  :  02:02

Valve gear on Corliss valves has  fascinated me for a long time, so I've been looking at the pictures here and wondering...

Are there two basic configurations of the Dobson block gear?  Looks to me like the gear on the Wiseman HP, Haslingden, Moss Mill and others is Dobson even though they have only one dashpot to serve both valves.  Is that the way it is, or are they a completely different valve motion than on the Bancroft engine?  Does that one dashpot contain two springs?  If so, does the "idle" spring cushion the one in motion, or is there other provision for cushioning?

Also, it looks to me like the Long Ing engine had slide valves all around.  Is this so?  If so, wasn't that rather uneconomical?  Seems like I've read somewhere that some mill engines had only slides, but I can't understand why.

Who can tell me what kind of valve motion was on the Hartford engine and Clover-Rochdale? They look a little strange and rather interesting.

Did you have any dashpots that worked only on vacuum?  That was common here in the US.

 




Karl Elden
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 06/05/2007 : 09:13
Welcome Gugger, it's true that on the whole Corliss gear reacted more quickly but George's main object was getting greater efficiency and also (and I never went into this) making a valve gear more suitable for higher speeds.  There are two books in particular, both published by Lindsay Publications.  'Hand Book of Corliss Engines' by F W Shillito Jnr.  and 'Engineering Reminiscences' by Charles T Porter.  Both of these fill in a lot of details about Corliss and the era he worked in.  Newton and I used to have long conversations about how we would design a steam engine for modern use.  In many ways we were in favour of a Bellis and Morcom laid on it's side but longer con rods.  It would be high speed, high pressure and a wood burning boiler.  There's a place for a prime mover like this today because it has such a low carbon footprint.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Gugger
Regular Member


61 Posts
Posted - 06/05/2007 : 10:38

Stanley, the arguments about the pro's and contras of the two major valve gear systems is very interesting. It seems both systems had their vivid supporters.
As you said it would be very interesting to have a modern design of a steam engine.

Concerning efficiency it is also interesting to read in George Watkins book the Mill Engine:

The Grape Mill Co. Royton. Lancs.
Musgrave of Bolton adopted the drop-piston valve, and in 1904 engaged Mr. Steiger of Switzerland to design the engines. They were very successful, and Grape and the smaller engine of the type at a Burnley weaving shed were said to be the most economical in Lancashire.

I don’t know if you are aware that the man most responsible for the success of the trop valve gear was an English man namely Charles Brown, that designed the valve gear for the Sulzer engines. Charles Brown did serve his apprenticeship with Maudslay & Field in London and joined Sulzer in 1851.

Maybe this two links are of interest to you:

http://ia311515.us.archive.org/3/items/handbookofcorlis00shilrich/handbookofcorlis00shilrich.pdf

http://ia331317.us.archive.org/0/items/corlissengine00hentiala/corlissengine00hentiala.pdf

Walter Brunner

 

 




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softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 07/05/2007 : 00:16

Hi Chaps

I have always been fascinated by watching Corliss valve gear since I first saw the late-lamented Dee Mill engine 30 years ago. I have also read some of the books mentioned including the volumes on the life of Corliss published some years ago. Trouble is, the techicalities always confuse me! I find it much easier to understand when I see the things in motion. The only surviving textile mill engine from my current area (the East Midlands) is the early Hick Hargreaves now at Forncett. I have seen this several times and her Inglis Spencer gear always seems harsher than later Corliss engines that I have seen.

I have always felt that the influence of steam and Corliss on the internal combustion engineers is understated. They haven't  always been tied to cams and poppet valves. Of course the "variable timing" effect on IC engines is usually taken care of by variable ignition, but I believe there have been attempts at variable cam settings using hydraulics for racing engines.

The idea of the rotary or semi-rotary valve became something of a Holy Grail for motor engineers at one time between the wars with designs like the "Aspin" and the "Cross" which were generally defeated by the then current state of knowledge on lubrication and metallurgy. The only semi-rotary valve system that caught on was the sleeve valve, initially with Daimler (coincidentally at the time that Lillie Lawrence aka "LBSC"  worked for them as I am sure Stanley will know). The idea was refined by Barr and Stroude and even used in bikes. The last gasp of the sleeve valve, as far as I know, being the post-war Bristol aero engines.

Rotary inlet valves for 2 strokes have been around for a long time but, as far as I know, the first successful application of (fully) rotary valves was in the 1912 TT winning Scott - made in Yorkshire. But then Alfred Angus Scott did his apprenticeship with Douglas and Grant (the first UK company to produce Corliss valve engines) and Sissons of Gloucester famous for their marine engines. Apologies for going off subject but the influence of steam and Corliss stretch further than we give credit for.

Cheers

 

 

 




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/05/2007 : 06:45

Interesting stuff.  Like many engines that were put on high superheat, older valve sytems failed due to lubrication breaking down at high temperatures.  The aero engines with sleeve valves early in WW2 had the same problem and a lot of pilots found this to there cost.  It took RR to solve that one with the Merlin and later the Griffon.  Rotary valves with too much cover grooved their seats and this was a big problem and the main reason why valves were rebored and new ones fitted.  Have a look at the LTP, AG series of transcripts, Newton mentione these difficulties.  Here's a bit from AG/11......

R-Fernbank, it were a good engine were Fernbank. It were a Pollit and Wigzell, about twelve hundred horse and it ran faster, it were five foot stroke and it ran at about 78 revs.

That’s a fair piston speed!

R-It were a fair piston speed. And also, it had superheat steam on as well. We used to reckon that piston speed up and it were running exactly the same as a Bellis and Morcombe running at 450rpm. It worked out, feet per minute, exactly the same and it were fully loaded all its life were that engine. It never gave much bother.

What were the load on it, what did they have on it?

R-About 1100 horse. Three boilers, six tapes, only two boilers on in summer and three in winter. Used to put all three on in winter just to help him. But I can’t ever remember it having any serious troubles. Main trouble were taking high pressure piston out fairly regularly for new rings, because with high temperature superheat they didn’t seem to last long. I ran it, I used to run it a fair lot when he was off ill. I was there a fair long time at one time. But its biggest trouble were valves sticking. It had the same trouble as yours had at Bancroft Stanley, they were single ported. Oh and it did spoil it you know, Like with me always being interested in th’engines, I were allus dead nuts on single ported valves because they’d swing so far and have that much cover they used to stick like mad when the load was off. You’d allus to be there and screw the stop valve down [to throttle it] and it were 160 pounds pressure. But the engine itself never gave any trouble at all, in fact, the low pressure crank pin block, the adjusting block, were just in the same position when that engine were scrapped, laid on the4 bottom of the connecting rod, where the fitter had fit it [when it were new] The day it were stopped it were still there. From 1914 to when it were stopped it had never been adjusted.




Stanley Challenger Graham




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softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 07/05/2007 : 23:19

Stanley

My hidden agenda for registering was to download from the LTP, I have been dipping into it during slack times on long night-shifts using the firm's Broadband, but I got fed up  with people disturbing me with work! I particularly want to take time over your and Newton Pickle's contributions since I have felt for years that the voices of those that worked with these machines are so rare. Ronald Clarke's interviews with the chap who ran the Stretham Drainage engine is the only other one that I can think of offhand.

Lubrication on steam seems another subject not mentioned much. I know that "wet steam" machines could make do with tallow cups, I seem to remember reading somewhere that tallow (animal fat) could play havoc with non-ferrous metals. When did they move to mineral oils? I imagine Corliss had to find something better when he moved from flat valves to the circular type. On a related subject, in some photos of larger mill engines you can glimpse an object that looks like a shiny dustbin or oil drum, sometimes with a sort of hood over it. Am I right in thinking these were connected with issuing oil, or was it reclaiming it?

Cheers

 

 

 

 




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 08/05/2007 : 06:54

Have you tried downloading the zip file of the LTP from the front page?  Tallow cups were still being fitted for secondary lubrication as late as the Bancroft engine in 1921.  The great thing about tallow, and it is still used by old fashioned fitters like me, is that it's the best lubricant for preventing stakes and keys 'ragging up' when you're driving them in.  All the early lubricants were animal fat based.  The best clock oil is still Neats Foot Oil which has been left to settle for years in direct daylight.  Probably the first non-animal lubricant was Castor Oil, the basis of Catrol R of course and that wonderful smell you got at the speedway.  At Ellenroad you can still see the oxidised castor oil on the beds below the flywheel steps.  The advent of mineral oils after the middle of the 19th century opened up an entirely new field of lubrication and it began to be studied as a science.  The heavier fractions of oil obtained from distillation were tried and we got modern steam cylinder oil.  The main property they looked for in the early days was how thick it was, the theory was that the thicker the better because it would take longer to wash off.  As oils improved, thinner cylinder oils were used as it became clear that the high temperature performance of oils varied with its composition.  Superheat brought even greater problems and required special oil.  The oil companies responded well and by the 1930's we had a wide range of oils from that suitable for saturated steam to the highest superheat temperatures.  In the 1980s I needed cylinder oil for Ellenroad and seeing as how our patrons were Coates I gave them the parameters and the problem.  Remember that a big engine like Ellenroad running light is actually running on super-saturated steam, water was our enemey.  Coates came up with an entirely new formulation, an oil that lubricated at high temperature, was resistant to water-washing and set like a light grease when the engine stopped.  Walker's Century Oils at Stoke on Trent made it for them and we got about ten 45 gallon barrels.  (I'll bet they're near to running out now!).  Just as important as the grade of oil is the way you put it into the engine.  In the early days any method would do but early in the 20th C it was realised that the best way was to feed it into the steam flow above the stop valve and atomise it with the steam.  In effect, the steam became the lubricant and reached all parts of the engine, even into the LP cylinders.  It was quite amazing the number of engines that ran into the 1950s without using this method.  One thing that is worth recognising is the lubricating quality of wet steam in cylinder bores.  I've seen engines stripped that have settled into running with minimum lubrication for years with no apparent ill-effects.  The CI surface seems to have been converted to a sort of black iron oxide.  Here's what Newton had to say on the subject...... 'R-Cast iron piston. Now we’d all sorts of pistons. Sometimes we put junk rings on. By junk ring I mean you make a piston with one edge cast solid to full width and then the other end is bolted on with ten inch or inch and an eighth set screws. Now doing that they could put wider rings on, what we called Buckley’s rings which had a spring underneath which when the rig got worn, they used to reckon you could take the junk ring off and increase the tension on the springs and take the wear out of the rings, but I soon did away with that idea because they were rubbish. Ramsbottom rings, you couldn’t beat ‘em, that’s like the rings on your motor car. Narrower and better, narrower and better, These big wide rings were no good, no good at all.

I’ve heard you talk about this. Where did you first come across these Ramsbottom rings?

R-Well I’d allus known about Ramsbottom rings but Burnley Ironworks on their later engines always put ‘em into the high pressure. And I used to say why don’t they put ‘em on the low and there were no answer to that so I started to put ‘em on to the low. But finest rings out, for a steam engine, finest rings out were Rowan rings, they were made at Belfast. They were self springing rings, you can picture a key ring that you wind your keys on that you have in your pocket, well they were made like that but they were made wider they’d be about an inch and a quarter wide, they were beautifully made. And then inside there was a wavy ring in between your rings. You’d a wavy ring and then when you bolted your junk ring on and your piston all up together this wavy ring kept tension on, inside of the ring and out. They were marvellous things, they were made for ships so as they didn’t want any oiling. You know [cylinders on] a ship never got any oil. They used to put part tallow in but none of that if they could get away with it and once across the Atlantic and back and they’d have to strip it and put new rings in. Now Rowan rings did away with a lot of that, they’d last two or three trips.

Aye, I know a thing or two about that, the reason for that would be that they didn’t want to get oil into the condensed water because they were using it over and over again.

R-No, they didn’t want to get oil into the condensers, if it got into the boilers they were jiggered.

So on a marine engine they’d be running them rings with no lubrication in the bore.

R-Them Rowan rings were a big success and I put ‘em into loads of low pressures in Lancashire engines. I didn’t put any into the highs but I did the lows. I used to use Ramsbottom rings in the high pressures. But low pressures, they were a revelation, talk about shifting the coal bill down, they did that did Rowan rings. Marvellous, there were nowt went past ‘em, especially if they were getting some oil, they were fully efficient. And you could fit ‘em into a worn cylinder, if you came across an engine that wanted, you know, that were on that happy medium between it wanting re-boring and it looked a shame to re-bore it. I just, I didn’t do many, I put a new piston in and put Rowan rings on ‘em and fitted ‘em to bore.

When you say it looked a shame to re-bore it, why was that, was that because they’d got such a nice finish on them?
R-It had a damn good finish and it were little worn. See, it ‘ud happen only be a thirty second worn at each side you know.

Aye, because they go like glass don’t they.

R-Aye, they go like glass and it looks a shame to re-bore them and I’d say let’s put a new piston in and put Rowan rings on. You know there were a lot of these engines built and they weren’t particular enough when they made ‘em and the pistons were too slack from the start and Bancroft were one of them. [Bancroft was Stanley Graham’s engine] I don’t like running folk down but Bancroft were one of them. I re-bored the high pressure cylinder at Bancroft 25 years since and that engine knocked from being new to me re-boring the cylinder. I were only a lad and I kept saying it wants re-boring does this, it’s chucking the piston about. Every stroke, clunk, clunk and they used to say it wants crank pin taking up, it wants cross head taking up. I says It wants hell as like taking up, it wants re-boring. And at finish up, Wilfred Nutter says Newton what is it that’s making this noise in this engine? I says It wants re-boring Wilfred and a new piston. He told me to get it done. George Hoggarth went up the wall at me, I thought he were going to punch [kick] me out of the engine house. And I were that mad, it were about Monday and I got all the stuff ready and I had the piston casting ready and I bored it at weekend. I got it done and set on about 11 or 12 o’clock on Sunday night and Hoggarth were there, I says Now then, where’s thee knock? He says It’s gone but thee wait until morning and it’ll be back! So I were there at 7 o’clock in the morning after when they set on, and bear in mind all the looms were running then. And at five past seven I says to Hoggarth, Where’s thee knock now? He says It’s gone Newton, here how much does ta want. If he’d had any money in his pocket he’d have given it me, I think he’d have given me the mill! It had knocked since 1920. '

So. like many other things connected with steam engines it's complicated.  The great thing about Newton is that he'd been there and done it, his evidence can be trusted.  As for the hooded containers, these were a common type of oil dispenser for light crank oil.  There were oil filters but these were usually in the cellar and used for oil which had passed through the crank pins and splashed onto the oil guards.  This was never used for bearing lubrication unless you were hard up, it was used for the slides and general non-critical lubrication perhaps in the mill and on the shafting. 




Stanley Challenger Graham




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softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 00:21

Stanley

Thanks for such a comprehensive reply , and for solving a mystery. I think that my sub-conscious mind was remembering those mysterious cabinets that used to lurk on garage fore-courts when I was a lad, since Dad ran his bangers on cheap oil bought in bulk, it was years before I realised that they were oil dispensers!

Castor Oil is something that I have dealt with, when I was younger I was involved with vintage grass-track and speedway on a purely amateur basis - still got a couple of the bikes but not the bottle to ride 'em. Several firms made castor oil but Castrol R 40 was the best and the only one that gave you the smell in my experience. It has gone out of fashion now, but I have seen motors that had run on the stuff for years looking like new inside when they were stripped. I still use it on one old road bike, but it is harder to get and a fearful price. I used to know an old chap, Harry Young, who had been a Flight Sgt in the R.F.C. According to him, all the early radial fighter engines used castor oil which, with open rockers, they used to throw around liberally. The pilots had to wear a sort of leather jerkin and were only good for one mission before nature took its course and they were grounded for a day! After all these years I am still not really sure whether he was spinning me a line or not!

Interesting to note Newton's comments about the "sacrificial" use of junk rings and his preference for narrower piston rings. I know from experience that pre First-war bikes used much wider rings which, with splash-lubrication, were prone to a build up of carbonised oil behind them leading to breakage - happened to one of mine a few years ago. On the other hand, the virtue of the glass like bore for steam is the opposite of IC engine practise. Cast Iron lasted so long for ICE bores, I was always told, because the porous surface retained the oil. Some of the old Brooklands tuners used to bury their cyclinders to mature them, just like some steam engine builders did with their castings. Thinking about it, I suppose the glass bore would work better when you are relying on the lubricating nature of wet steam rather than viscous oil.

Sorry to keep harping on the "infernal combustion" engine. I shall now go away and get reading to improve my knowledge of steam!

Cheers

 

 




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 08:46
Burying castings is not for improvement of lubrication, it is to allow the stresses to come out of the casting, hopefully... All castings have internal stresses due to differential cooling.   In the old days, before 'just in time' management of inventories, foundries used to make castings and then leave them outside to rust for perhaps a year or more.  This allowed the worst of the stresses to dissipate as the casting distorted.  For really precise applications, the castings were then rough machined and left to mature again before final machining or surface grinding.  One way to speed this process up was to normalise the casting in a furnace.  They were brought up to cherry red heat and held there long enough to let them relax and then colled very slowly down to black heat.  This got rid of most of the stresses but something I saw many a time when reconditioning large steam valves was that on a very precise lathe, you could take a cut, leave it for ten minutes, go bak and attempt a half thou skim and the casting had distorted.  This is why the best way is to take the last 'cut' by grinding in.  In very large castings allowance was made in the design by splitting the hub of a large wheel to allow this distortion to be absorbed by the split.  The beds on the Jubilee engine were cast in one piece and there were cooling cracks in the most complicated areas.  At the time we moved them certain 'experts' got very het up about these cracks because they had no experience and didn't realise that they happend when the casting cooled and were actually a good safety valve for the stresses.  The founders knew their job, the cracks were all in the bottom surface where they couldn't be seen and didn't matter as at this point, when installed, the cracks were in compression.  More ways to skin a cat than one!  The first person to really understand CI piston rings was a man called John Howlett who founded Wellworthy rins.  Look for two books, the official history 'Wellworthy, the first fifty years'  Written by D Pearce and published privately in 1969.  This is the official history and contains much good info.  However, look also for 'The Guv'nor'  Written by John Howlett because he was pissed off with the firm for throwing him off the board.  This was ghosted by a friend of mine Iris Woodford and is far more revealing about how the firm actually grew.  Published in 1973 ISBN 0 85422 091 7.  I also had the benefit of hearing the original unedited tapes made by Howlett and there was even more fascinating stuff in there especially about his time with the Ministry of Aircraft Production during WW2.  Go looking on bookfinder.com........


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 12:12

I dug this out for you......

ROLLS ROYCE AND THE WHITTLE ENGINE.

Cripps was undoubtedly as aware as I was of what our little piece of paper would mean to those fifty people, and of the disruption in their living it would cause. And I think he was as sympathetic to them as I was, though he didn't have my close experience of the way men work when they enjoy it and their life is decent and their own. But he was placed, as I thank God I wasn't, close to the necessities of the men who were running the whole thing, and he had his duty to them to do. I admired him and I never had a battle with him, not a real battle, though I know one man who did and who won. It was Hives, and when he told me about it I saw that he had brought Cripps to take an engineer's decision on the point at issue, not by logical arguments about engineering, though those had helped, but by a sincere and passionate emotional appeal which Hives couldn't help and which Cripps couldn't ignore. And for that I admire them both.

The interview took place late in 1942, during the time when it was realised that our whole programme for the development of jet aircraft would have to be re-examined. Neither the Government nor private enterprise had recognised early enough the value of Air Commodore Whittle's invention, and during the time since he had first patented and published it in 1930 Germany and the firm of Ernst Heinkel had shot ahead of us. As it had become aware of the facts, the Air Ministry had tried to rectify the situation by helping Power Jets develop its Chairman's engine by ordering the Gloster Aircraft Company to produce a suitable aircraft, and then by investing one and a half million in the shadow factory at Barnoldswick where Rover's in collaboration with Power Jets were to build the W2B. As a further step, Dr Roxbee Cox's Gas Turbine Collaboration Committee had been formed to ensure that all the firms working on various projects pooled their information and maintained good relationships with one another. It had been running for over a year now, in the shape which Hives had suggested. and it had been running well. But the W2B showed no signs of coming into production and Hives, along with many others, was worried.

You must remember that Hives was an expert, that his reasons for worrying were informed with the experience he'd gained in working himself up from being a man with a cycle shop in Reading to being the Managing Director and Chairman of Rolls-Royce. It is also as well to bear in mind that at this time his anxiety had been sharpened by the loss of someone very dear to him, and he was convinced that that particular death in the skies over Germany would not have happened had our enemies not been our superior in the development of the jet

So the whole matter had become very urgent and personal to him. He wanted to work this death off, to put his energy into tackling the problem of finding a steel alloy that could take the heat. He knew that Rolls could do it and felt frustrated that it was not allowed to do so. He felt as well that if England with the skill and experience of his firm to call on, chose not to make that call then it was England who was culpable.

He said as much to Cripps. The Minister replied 'But we do ask for help from Rolls-Royce, we do appreciate your resources. Last June we asked you to adapt Dr Griffith's gas turbine as a jet propulsion unit and now that the flight tests of the F9/40 are going ahead we can safely say that you've made a most valuable contribution.'

'But we could contribute so much more, sir, if we only had the chance.'

'No doubt,' said Cripps. 'The matter is under revision.'

'May I say, sir, that it's been under revision a long time now. Nearly three years ago Frank Whittle himself said that we'd be good at the job and that our firms got on well together. Last April our name was suggested again.'

'It was not suggested to me,' Cripps said. 'I was not in office then.'

'No sir. But if the Director of Scientific Research considered us fit to undertake the research and production his opinion must surely carry some weight. Lord knows I'm not saying anything against Rover, sir, but they've not got the experience of Rolls. We're the ones who could cope with the W2B for you if we were in charge.'

'Mr Hives,' broke in Cripps, 'I have already told you that the matter is under review. I am therefore not at liberty to discuss it with you. But I will tell you this much; I want a certain number of engines from your firm every week and I won't disturb the work of one man who is making them. I can't permit your basic production to be interfered with.'

'Well, I'm sorry, Sir Stafford, but you're wrong,' said Hives. 'It wouldn't make any difference to our production of those engines, our output would stay the same.' 'I can't accept that,' said Cripps, 'I've been here now long enough to see that kind of assertion proved false too often.'

'Then it's not been made by Rolls-Royce. You know the firm, sir. You've got to admit we could do it. No one could do it better or quicker than we could. No one but us should be in charge at Barnoldswick.'

Sir Stafford Cripps seemed to go very formal and distant at that point-as well he might I should think-and Hives realised that the interview was at an end. It had taken a lot out of him, saying what he'd had to say and he knew he'd done it badly and with none of his usual finesse. For a minute, as he pulled himself to his feet and reached for his hat he was a tired, ageing man with too much bulk for his bones to carry and cigarette ash on his waistcoat. But then it came back to him, the reason why it mattered, and he could feel the anger in his fingers on the door, and because he was angry he was strong again and desperate. 'But people are dying needlessly!' he said. 'It's wrong, I tell you. It's stupid and it's wrong, and I won't let it go on like this. There should be questions in Parliament about it, headlines in the papers. The world should know that this country is making a mistake, and I shall see to it that the world does know, I shall see to it myself! We've got to have jets or more people will be killed. And they're young.'

He blundered out of the door, but Cripps said, 'Come back, Hives. 1 don't think we can afford to fall out, you and I' He shuffled his papers about while Hives got hold of himself and then looked up and said, quite casually,

'What can I do?'

'Everything,' said Hives.

On 1 January, 1943, Rolls-Royce engineers were at Barnoldswick, and three months later the company took over the facilities and organisation there and the responsibility for producing the W2B and W2/500 engines. Hives' interview with Cripps may have played no part in bringing this about. Cripps may have been already planning to ease the burden from Rover who had probably already indicated that they were ready for it to go. Those in favour of Rolls-Royce taking over included Cripps' Chief Executive, Air Marshal Sir Wilfred Freeman, and his Controller of Research and Development, and doubtless their opinions counted most with Cripps. But I like to believe that Hives' final appeal may have helped Cripps to see the issue in terms of the young men who flew the planes and that he remembered these things when he came to take his decision. And I like to think that he did it to save lives. For that must always be our common ground. Politicians may not understand an engineer talking of engineering, they may not permit him to talk of politics or to try to understand the expediencies of their craft, but when it comes down to a question of deaths that can be prevented, the politician and engineer alike must speak the same language.

And it stands to reason that, where deaths can be attributed directly to a flaw in a particular aircraft engine, no engineer worth his salt can keep silence. Put yourself in the place of a man convinced that he knows why that flaw occurs and how it could be rectified, a man who had no son to lose but who was involved in the bereavements of his friends, and judge whether or not I was speaking out of turn when I taxed the Minister with my knowledge.

I was certain of my facts; my chief engineer had paid several visits to Napier's factory and had been surprised to see them punching holes in the cast iron sleeve. To the foreman he'd made the comment that Bristol, who had developed the sleeve valve engine, always machined the holes very carefully; it took longer, of course, but the finish was a better job altogether.

'Oh, we'll show Bristol a thing or two before we've finished!' was the reply. Now that sort of attitude, in a firm which hasn't the experience, is rather worrying, and it didn't seem to be confined to that foreman. Bristol were mature enough to know that competition doesn't apply in wartime, and to offer any help that they could give; but the offer wasn't taken up, perhaps because Napiers, after all the troubles of getting the Sabre engine into production, felt they had to prove something.

The Air Ministry took delivery after a fifteen-hour test, eighty-five hours less than was given to a Bristol or a Rolls; and what was in fact proven, by the engine seizing up and failing again and again once it had done fifteen hours flying time, was that the Sabre was unreliable. It had to be stripped down and re-serviced every fifteen hours if it was going to do the job that it was put in the air to do. This was sheer wastage and in so far as it was a wastage of pilots' lives, it could not be countenanced. The youngsters themselves were fed up about it, and who wouldn't be, when the hurry of war might make it impossible for a servicing to be done before your next trip, and you knowing that the trip would take you beyond that critical point of fifteen hours?

So I made it my business to see that I had a talk with the Minister of Production at a time when he was in a position to see for himself both the production method and the attitude of pilots towards the Sabre engine. He was due to visit my area to tour the Napier factory and watch a display, the plane in action. The day before the visit he was to be in Oxford with a man whose name, I think, was Sir John Henry Wood and someone else, doing business for Churchill at Magdelen College, so I suggested that the three of them should come to Abingdon when they left Oxford and spend the night at Fyfield Manor.

After dinner I put my case to Oliver Lyttelton and the others, as plainly and as forcefully as I could: the sleeves were punched; they seized fifteen hours or so after a service; the Sabre engine was killing people. For all that it was so powerful -more powerful than Rolls' engines at that time -and for all the desperate shortage of new planes it was not wise to fit this engine. Sir John Henry Wood was interested, he questioned me closely, he took up the implications of my answers, he tried to see things from the point of view of an engineer.

The next morning we were at Napiers, being shown round by Sir James Spriggs. During the tour of inspection I became just one of the Minister's retinue-I couldn't very well jog his arm and say, 'Look what they are doing on this machine,' but out on the aerodrome I stepped forward. The pilot who was to put the plane through its paces was brought up to say his piece and I was determined that his attitude towards the engine should at least have a hearing. And so, when Spriggs had asked the pilot what he thought of the plane and the pilot had said that it went like a bird, I pulled Lyttelton's arm and said, 'And the engine, sir?'

He said to the pilot, 'The engine? Are you satisfied with that?'

The pilot looked at Sir James Spriggs for a prompting, and Sir James Spriggs looked at the ground. I thought the question was going to get the treatment of all importunate questions that are never heard in polite society, but finally the pilot found his voice.

'Well, sir,' he said, 'If it's not done more than fifteen hours since it was serviced, I would say it was a good engine.'

'All right, Smith, the balloons are down,' said Spriggs. 'Show the Minister the plane.'

And the boy, having spoken out for himself and for all the other boys of his kind, walked smartly across the runway and climbed into the cockpit. He gave us a splendid show, and on the strength of it Lyttelton said to me as we were walking back,

'Well, Howlett, I thought last night that you were a pessimist. He spoke expansively, a man who was sure of his ground and sure, too, that the plane he had seen perform was a winner. I had to put him right, I couldn't help myself.

'I'm just an engineer, sir. And I'm sorry, but if you were my sort of engineer-not an industrialist, but a man who had worn dirty overalls-then you would take notice of what the pilot said.'

Now that, of course, was awkward, verging on the impertinent, and I could see my mistake in its effect on Lyttelton's expression. I didn't mind for myself, but I minded for the pilots, and I had to get this across to him if it cost me my job. 'May I put it to you this way, sir,' I said. 'If you bought a Rolls in London and drove it to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and found that it had to be serviced before you could drive it back again, you wouldn't think it was a good motor-car, would you?'

'I see what you mean,' he said.

'If it doesn't get that service the sleeve valve is very likely to seize up and the pilot's in trouble. They deserve engines they can rely on, and Bristol is the only firm that knows how to make a reliable sleeve valve engine. To learn how to make one that doesn't distort they spent months researching and perfecting their production method, and they are the firm who should be making sleeves for this Napier engine. Believe me, sir, it's only you or Churchill that could intervene and give the job to Bristol, and I'd pester Churchill to do it if I could get at him.'

'Yes, I believe you might,' said the Minister of Production.

It hadn't gone down very well with him, as I was told by a member of his staff later, and as I deduced from a visit that Norman Ripping paid me soon afterwards. 'The next time you send in your resignation, John, it'll be accepted,' he said. I'd resigned in a token sort of way over office accommodation before and been told that there was to be no nonsense and that I must carry on.

[From ‘The Guv’nor’ the privately published memoir of John Howlett who founded the Wellworthy Piston Ring Company. (pp. 283-289)]




Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 11/05/2007 : 00:30

Stanley

Many thanks for taking the trouble to look out this fascinating material. I was aware that burying castings was part of the early attempts at "normalising" , but only because I read it somewhere. I had always assumed that they were also looking to leave oil pockets in the machined bore. I seem to recall that the practise of using curved spokes that you see on small early engine flywheels, mule wheels, tram wheels etc was also an attempt to deal with stress relief. It makes one realise how much practical expertise was relied upon in the days before scientific metallurgy. I have recently discovered a great-grandfather who was an "underhand iron puddler" in Bilston, Staffs. I know little about him but what I have read about his job makes helps me to understand some of his actions (and why he was a drinker).

The excerpt from John Howlett's biography is a fascinating glimpse into the machinations of the Ministry of Aircraft Production and, as a career civil-servant, I can recognise the undercurrents. The tension between the politician and the engineer is an old one but imagine today's politicians facing that level of responsibility without hordes of consultants and focus groups! Nowadays (in the Public Service anyway) the tension is between politician, accountant and I.T. Consultant  (the new witch doctors) and the Public Accounts Committee can testify to the result - enough of that.

As to Rolls Royce Areo Engineers - I can testify to the quality of the "foreigners" that came from their long-gone Small Engine Division at Leavesden, wish I still such friends, and most of my welding and brazing is done by a genius who trained at RR Derby.

Although I have no interest in flying, I have spent a lot of my working life in the vicinity of aircraft. Twenty years ago we were often entertained by the last commercial aircraft in the Northern Hemisphere to use Bristol Hercules sleeve- valve engines in the shape of G-BISU a B 170 Bristol Freighter.(In those days Hercules Air in New Zealand still ran a couple of B 170s). Out of curiosity we boarded her a couple of times to chat to the crew. It was an interesting old machine that had served in Vietnam with the New Zealand Airforce, but, nontheless a thouroughly servicable and practical machine that earned its keep when the larger freighters were overloaded - usually with car parts from Cologne. Sadly she was later written off in a landing accident at an Airshow. The sight (flashing under the cowling) and sound of that old girl taking off on a cold night was a memory to be treasured!

Cheers

 

 




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 11/05/2007 : 05:59
The curved spokes were an attempt to allow some stretch to be absorbed in the casting but I've welded too many of them to believe that the ploy was 100% effective.  If you read the old books and indeed listen to some experts, there was a belief that the early engineers thought the longer spokes gave the wheel more leverage.  I think that is twaddle.  Have a search for the Wellworthy and Howlett books, there is a lot of interesting stuff about how Howlett did his early tests on bikes racing in the TT on the Isle of Man.  I've fitted many a set of 'Duaflex' rings to worn IC engines and they were magic, gave you another 20,000 miles before you had to rebore. 


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 11/04/2009 : 16:24
I've brought this back to the fore because of the question about American engines.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 30/08/2009 : 08:05
I have at last got the Arnold Throp book on engine building but it was a bit lika pulling teeth! I looked for a topic to poist on and dropped on this one again. Some fascinating stuff in here. At one time I had the copies of the original tapes John Howlett made but returned them to the lady who ghosted the book for him. He was a lot more forthright on the tapes and it had to be watered down for publication. The process of improvement and procurement was just as fraught with difficulty then as now. It makes you wonder if there was a bow and arrow scandal before Agincourt!


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
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