# African Queen



## Gordon (Nov 21, 2014)

Does anyone know of plans available for the engine and boiler from the African Queen? I have looked and have not been able to find anything. Lacking plans a good scaleable drawing would be good. The folks who have build scale models seem to have done so from watching the movie 75 times.


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## Gordon (Nov 21, 2014)

I want plans for the engine and boiler at perhaps 1/8 scale. Not interested in the boat itself.


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## fpravenscroft (Nov 21, 2014)

try googling cyril it, an african queen made by Malcolm beak he also does the engine for it i have a copy of the drawings but at this moment i can not find them i think the engine is m22 but will stand to be corrected i'll let you know what else i can find out
regarfs 
peter


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## fpravenscroft (Nov 21, 2014)

gordon 
      the engine you require is the mb22 by malcolm beak there are various write ups on the net
regards
peter


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## Gordon (Nov 21, 2014)

Thanks. That gives me a start and some things to pursue. In the past when I looked I kept finding a lot of engines which folks had used in model boats but were not actually the same engine or even close to the original. I did find a reference that the engine used in the movie was just a prop and the boat was actually driven by a diesel engine hidden away. Not sure if that is actually true.


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## aonemarine (Nov 21, 2014)

Huston we have a problem!!

  Isnt the mb22 a 2cylinder??
here is the rivier queens engine from the movie. clearly a single cylinder of large bore.


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## aonemarine (Nov 21, 2014)

> In the movie, directed by John Huston and released in 1951, the boat was powered by a diesel engine that was made to look like a steam engine


.

Im not so sure, looks pretty authentic, but the exhaust loos kind small.  Whats on top of the steam chest? lubricator??


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## aonemarine (Nov 21, 2014)

http://hangsim.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=4586&start=20


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## aonemarine (Nov 21, 2014)

stuart #1 doesnt look like this at all. this engine has 2 support columss and a square backed crosshead guide.
  Im pretty convinced that it is a real steam engine in the movie and not some doctered up diesel. Looking at the movie and the size of the cylinder and large vertical boiler I would have to think this engine operates on low pressure but consumes a large volume of steam to produce the required power. The boiler fits the engine.   All this "documation" on the net seems nothing more than a ruse to cover things up to make up for the questions regaurding the authenticity of the boat displayed in key largo. Everyone loves a good love story, but i suspect the real african queen is still resting on the bottom overseas....


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## Hopper (Nov 22, 2014)

You would think that if they used a diesel engine, which they most probably did for convenience, it would be hidden below deck or inside the boiler etc out of view. Hard to imagine them restoring a steam launch to working condition then  faffing about raising steam etc while trying to film a movie.


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## Hopper (Nov 22, 2014)

PS, bit more info on it on the dreaded Wikipedia. Seems the original boat from the movie is restored and on display in Florida.
Filming was actually done in Uganda and Congo, and the boiler was a copper fake, according  to Wiki.


"Most of the action takes place aboard a boat &#8211; the _African Queen_  of the title &#8211; and scenes on board the boat were filmed using a large  raft with a mockup of the boat on top. Sections of the boat set could be  removed to make room for the large Technicolor  camera. This proved hazardous on one occasion when the boat's boiler &#8211; a  heavy copper replica &#8211; almost fell on Hepburn. It was not bolted down  because it also had to be moved to accommodate the camera. The small  steam-boat used in the film to depict the _African Queen_ was built in 1912, in England, for service in Africa. At one time it was owned by actor Fess Parker.[14] In December 2011, plans were announced to restore the boat.[15] Restoration was completed by the following April and the African Queen is now on display as a tourist attraction at Key Largo, Florida.[16]
 Because of the dangers involved with shooting the rapid scenes, a model was created at the studio tank in London."

Nice video of the boat in action today, showing some good close up shots of the engine in action
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fiHPaNktEGM[/ame]


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## Hopper (Nov 22, 2014)

And a good run down on the engine here
http://www.webcomsknkwrks.com/africqun.htm
Looks like maybe the steam engine in movie was a little different? Something faked up for the filming?
As far as the prop sahft goes, looks like there is a chain drive from the engine shaft to the prop shaft below.


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## Gordon (Nov 22, 2014)

Interesting discussion. It looks like there are a lot of opinions on what the engine actually was in the film. From the screen shot, it looks like most of the engines used in the replicas are not too close to the original. It is possible that the original engine was not even operational. Cobbling together a bunch of parts to look like a steam engine is a possibility. As other have noted, using actual steam on a movie set would be very difficult and actually using an auxiliary power source would make sense. I can see why I have been having a problem finding plans since there is not even a consensus on what the engine actually looked like.


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## aonemarine (Nov 22, 2014)

Im pretty sure the engine in the movie is real. one point in the movie when the (rubber hose) steam line was shot off they show the engine starting back up. There was no steam involved but if you look at the position of the stepheson link it is set dead center so there is no motion of the slide valve.  My question would be, was it set to neutral to make the engine easier to spin by hand or something?
  There are a couple things I do question about the engine. One is the size of the exhaust plumbing, the cylinder head, and I dont see any way to tighten the packing on the valve rod. But cobbing together the bottom end IE crank, rod, eccentrics, feed water pumps, Looks just too real down there not to be an actual steamer.  However they could have easily fit a diesel in the boiler and drove the steam engine and prop from it.
 You never see a "real" fire in the boiler so maybe?


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## Tin Falcon (Nov 22, 2014)

Billing Boats (BB588) African Queen Steam Boat - Model Boat & Fittings
An interesting visual reference but not plans. for the engine. 
http://billingboats-direct.com/estore/instructions/billing/bb588.pdf
Aparently the boat was "restored a couple years ago but different boiler and engine. 
http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/07/11582782-african-queen-sails-again-six-decades-after-appearing-in-bogart-film?lite


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## Hopper (Nov 23, 2014)

Interestinger and interestinger. The engine in Tin's post is different again.  Africa being Africa, the boat could have been fitted with any number of different engines over the years. It was always hard/impossible to get spare parts for anything there. I was in Congo and Uganda in the 1980s. Around Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika there were the hulks of many old steamers lying in the mud at various old harbours, and the remains of old steam engines scattered about. They ranged from African Queen size to large ferries that could take hundreds of passenngers. In fact, I journeyed down lake Tanganyika from Rwanda/Burundi to Tanzania on a modern diesel powered motor ship that was towing two old steamers then in use as barges. 

Maybe one way to figure out the original engine wuold be to look up the maker in the UK, they are named in one of the articles I linked to, and see what was their standard launch engine. Of course, by 1951 it could have had severeal new engines by then.

Or if you want to make it exactly like in the movie, you are going to have to watch the movie 75 times and look for a similar engine plan you can adapt to appear the same.

While you are at it, be sure to read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness -- the original story about steaming up the Congo River that inspired both the African Queen and Apocalypse Now. The book will give you a clearer picture of how machinery was kept going in remote Africa back in the day.


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## Hopper (Nov 23, 2014)

You have got me hooked now. I found the below on the IMDB.com site, saying they did not do all the filming on the boat itself but made up several dummy sets on a large that was bigger in order to fit the cameras on board. That may explain why the two movie stills posted near the beginning of this thread appear to have slightly different engines. One appears black, the other green. One appears to have a totally square boxy cylinder/valve gear cover, the other is rounded on one end. They used the raft for close ups of Bogey and Hepburn, so that would most likely include anything close up enough to see detail on the engine. 

So the engine you see in the movie is most likely not actually the engine that was in the boat at the time.

_"Because the boat used in the film was too small to carry cameras and  equipment, portions of the boat were reproduced on a large raft, in  order to shoot close-ups of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Interior and water-tank scenes were filmed in London, as were most of the scenes containing secondary characters. Robert Morley  shot all of his scenes in London, including footage of him preaching,  which was edited together with shots of the natives praying, which was  filmed in Africa. "_
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043265/trivia


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## Hopper (Nov 23, 2014)

Found some pics online of "Filming the African Queen". IT sure looks like the actual boat had the single cylinder engine like shown in the movie stills at the beginning of the thread. These were cropped from full pictures showing the actual boat, no raft.













And I found a pic of either a raft or studio mock up also used. No engine at all! But shows how you can't rely on what you see in the movie to be the actual boat.


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## aonemarine (Nov 23, 2014)

ok,  time to sit down and watch the movie 75 times!!  I bet I could get enough still shots from it to design a very good likeness, If I only had the time...


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## Tin Falcon (Nov 23, 2014)

There are many model versions of the African queen. 
some are live steam rc some are static sme look authentic some not as much. varios versions of the boiler and engine. 
wilesco has a decent model of it. 





Like others have said this boat has have to had a good many different engines and boilers over its life. The question is what look do want it to have . Do you want it to look original ? or like it did in the movie or just look right to you. You may just want to look for a boiler and vertical engine of the right size that look good together and fit your boat. 
Here is a plan set that could work or at least use as a starting point
http://www.john-tom.com/MyPlans/SteamPlans3/GermanSingleVertical/BP-Dampf.pdf

Tin


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## Gordon (Nov 24, 2014)

I found some good images of the engine at 

http://hangsim.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=4586

If that is an actual screenshot from the movie, nothing shown in this thread so far is accurate.

Interesting topic if nothing else.


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## aonemarine (Nov 24, 2014)

Gordon, I posted that link in post #8.  It is a computer simulation of what the queen looks like and not a screen shot of the movie.

  OOPS  sorry, they are screen shots...


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## Gordon (Nov 24, 2014)

I had looked at your previous link and kind of dismissed it because as you said it was just a computer simulation and was more concentrated on the boat itself than the engine. Sorry, I did no hang in there long enough. If the above shots I showed above are actually screen shots as he said it is the clearest shot that I have seen. I did watch the movie (only once) this week end and those shots look right. There are only very brief shots of the engine.


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## aonemarine (Nov 24, 2014)

> If that is an actual screenshot from the movie, nothing shown in this thread so far is accurate.



  This is where you are confusing me, The stills I posted at the beginning of the thread are screen shots I took with my cell phone from the movie. That may explain the color differences??  Ill watch the movie "again LOL" and try and get you some more if you want.


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## Hopper (Nov 24, 2014)

Those pics are stills from the movie, according to the original poster on the simulation site.
And they look to me to be very like the engine in the first page of posts in this thread. Seem to be some extra bolts around the  cylinder area in one pic but that may be the side that is not shown in the simulation site's movie stills.

If you look at the pics from Hangsim and from the beginning of this thread, both are a simple single cylinder engine with valve gear on one side of the cylinder. Both have the large flat cast iron support on the one side going from the crankshaft area to the cylinder base above. The other side has two round turned columns supporting that side of the cylinder base. 

It actually looks more like a steam engine that was used for driving a generator or other stationary use than a dedicated steam launch engine. Most steam  launch engines were double or triple expansion engines. Seems like this one is super basic, maybe due to African remote conditions?


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## aonemarine (Nov 24, 2014)

> maybe due to African remote conditions?



  Thats what I have been thinking, large wood fueled boiler, low pressure, big cylinder. 
Many, many mysteries about the queen.



> It actually looks more like a steam engine that was used for driving a generator or other stationary use than a dedicated steam launch engine


  Agreed, pretty heavy construction for a marine engine.. Wheres the flywheel??  If we could only find some information on the engine, ive looked and looked, but cant find one like it.


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## Gordon (Nov 25, 2014)

In looking there are pictures of the boat as received in Florida and the engine was a two cylinder and very bad shape when they received it. I think that the engine used in the movie may have not been a working engine and was just a prop. Several sources state that the boat was actually powered by a diesel or gasoline engine. It would make sense that if the boat was actually used for something else after the movie a working engine was installed and the non working prop engine replaced.


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## aonemarine (Nov 25, 2014)

there is a big green box sitting behind the steam engine, bet thats where the diesel is sitting.  Been studying the engine in the movie, yes im pretty sure its a just a prop .  But the real question is, if your building the amazon queens engine, do you build the scissions or the prop engine in the movie?


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## steamboatmodel (Nov 25, 2014)

aonemarine said:


> there is a big green box sitting behind the steam engine, bet thats where the diesel is sitting.  Been studying the engine in the movie, yes im pretty sure its a just a prop .  But the real question is, if your building the amazon queens engine, do you build the scissions or the prop engine in the movie?



I have always thought that the green box contained the engine. There was a Sea Scout group herein Toronto that had a workboat with diesel power and the engine was in about the same spot as the Green Boxin the movie. Unfortunatly the group has dissapeared and I never got any shots of the workboat.
Regards,
Gerald.


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## aonemarine (Nov 25, 2014)

http://mattmulcahey.wordpress.com/2...enes-the-african-queen-1951/#jp-carousel-2251

shot of the queen and filming barge.

pretty sure I see two engines and two boilers in the photo. One in the queen and another copy on the barge.
  Maybe someone can download the pic and blow up points of interest?


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## Gordon (Nov 25, 2014)

My original thought was that I would like an engine like in the movie. If it is not the movie version any vertical marine engine of the proper vintage and configuration would do. I thought about trying to make an engine which is ascetically correct but I am not sure that I am smart enough to make a working steam engine like that. There must be certain rules as to bore, stroke, size of steam chamber, steam port size etc with which I am not familiar. Perhaps I could find something close to the correct size and just change the external configuration to match the movie version.


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## Hopper (Nov 25, 2014)

Gordon, if you have a look through the Stuart Models website they have several single cylinder vertical engines of very similar type. Including a launch engine that includes reversing gear and feed water pump.
Also, E and J Winter in Australia sell plans and kits for a line of Bolton engines that are quite similar. Their No 3 engine looks quite similar to the AQ's engine in the movie. It appears to have the two round vertical support columns as well as the main cast support. 
You can download their catalogue at http://www.ejwinter.com.au/

Either one of these options would be so close only an afficionado would ever tell the difference. And it would be more correct (to the movie) than the triple expansion engine fitted to the Florida African Queen in recent years, and more correct than the Oregon cider press engine that was fitted to it when the Floridians bought it from the guy in Oregon who bought it from the guy in California who found it in Egypt.


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## Gordon (Nov 26, 2014)

Thanks Hopper. The Bolton looks promising however the view in the catalog is not much better than the screen captures posted here. I have sent an email to E J winter for more information and to see what the options are for US shipment. Perhaps just plans in electronic format are an option.


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## steamboatmodel (Nov 26, 2014)

If you read the book by Katherine Hepburn it showes the boiler outof the  boat. I talked with the fellow whohad it originaly in florida and when he aquired thr boat it had a single cylinder engine and a boiler, but they did not match the movie ones. He found ones that closely matched but were not operational. He toured with it like that for years, but then desided to make it operational with a new two cylinder engine and certified boiler. It was like that in the 1990s when I seen it last. The fellow who owened it was a retired lawer (Jim Hendrex?) and had family conections to the hotel in keylargo were it was displayed. I had some photos but can't find them.
Regards,
Gerald.
PS there is PDF of the billings instructions which show the kit engine.


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## gus (Nov 27, 2014)

Tin Falcon said:


> There are many model versions of the African queen.
> some are live steam rc some are static sme look authentic some not as much. varios versions of the boiler and engine.
> wilesco has a decent model of it.
> 
> ...



Hi Tin.

Just dreaming. I can DIY the boiler and engine but I know nuts about DIY boat building. Built a few mini steam plants .Maybe the best solution is to buy a boat kit . Will look around.
Put  in Futaba RC. Engine will be 2 cylinder slide valve and double acting.


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## KellisRJ (Mar 26, 2021)

2021 update after the subject was discussed on another thread.
I decided to check Wikipedia and found two separate articles on the boat with several original source citations. This article on the movie claims the L.S. _Livingston_ "had been a working diesel boat for 40 years". This article on the boat says there were two boats built for the movie, The Congo boat, built in England in 1912, that ended up in the US, and the Nile boat built for the movie. It doesn't mention the stage boat. The article states "she was actually diesel-powered in real life but made to look like she had a steam engine onscreen."  However the article also claims the Nile boat's "original" engine was a "century-old Brady steam engine." I suspect they found an engine and fitted it on the boat. That boat remains in Uganda. So aside from which engine was on either of the two ships, the engine in the film would depend on where the scene was shot. On the US stage boat, the Congo boat, or the Nile boat. Hence the disconnect in the pictures.


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