CORLISS cylinder machining

kellswaterri · Jan 10, 2016

oilmac said:
Kellswaterri,

Who made the castings for your nice model, Is it a British set of castings or American, You certainly have yor project looking good.

Hi oilmac...
This is going to be a lllooonnnggg post...
the drawings and designs were done by a chap named arnold throp who worked for cole merchant and morley...engine makers from bradford arnold described His engine in Model Engineer ed/second iss/Aug/Sept 1982...
Peter Southworth (now deceased) ran the business when I bought my kit of castings It Was I believe based on the FLEET Corliss...Model Services ...Essex...
gwrdriver...(a member) has some info ...
I remember some thing about the castings that iI recieved were right on the drawing limits or in some cases smaller (bed plates) I contacted Peter the Crux of the enquiry being that I should think of the drawings ...as a GUIDE....and make the parts to fit...I much later found this to be very good advice.If you are making one there is plenty of help around...
All the best for now.
John... ( Kellswaterri)

redryder · Feb 8, 2016

You are correct. It was the Fleet Corliss until Fleet went under and Peter became successor to Fleet.
It is the same engine under the Southworth badge.

I have a Fleet Corliss built by John McDivitt (completed 1986).

It makes for a very elegant model engine.

Here is a video of it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXOJ1UEfikI

(I tried to embed it but that did not work)

Enjoy,
Gil

Cogsy · Feb 8, 2016

redryder said:
I have a Fleet Corliss built by John McDivitt (completed 1986).

(I tried to embed it but that did not work)

I'm not a steam guy but that engine really impresses me. Just beautiful and so smooth running. Awesome.

Here's my attempt at embedding it (you need the whole link starting with the http) :

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXOJ1UEfikI[/ame]

barnesrickw · Feb 10, 2016

Beautiful engine.

kellswaterri · Apr 2, 2016

Hi Folks...yes '' that engine build is a ''beauty''...I have not moved forward much more than the last photo ...Hip and leg giving major probs. bloods o/k x rays done next is N mri scan Hopefully it is what they think degenerative hip wear. I was in shed to day general tidy up and ran sll engines for a while a very good motivation exercise specially after watching that video...
keep her cuttin guys.

abby · Apr 3, 2016

When I started work for the National Coal Board one of our local collieries had corliss engines winding the cages. As far as I know this was the only steam driven winding set working in the UK.
These engines were installed when the colliery opened in the 1930's and were not replaced by electric motors for many years because the shafts were 1/2 mile deep and steam gave a quicker turnround.
Whenever I had to visit the colliery I always went to the winding house to watch the engines working, I believe the bores were about 3 feet diameter and the stroke was about 12 feet but they were almost silent.
I have some photographs somewhere if I can find them.
The boiler house that supplied the steam for these beauties had 10 Lancashire boilers and also supplied steam for turbine driven generators in the power house, I was also suprised to find that the enormous ventilation fans , although driven by electric motors , had 3 cylinder steam engines on stand by in case of a power failure.