Free plans for a larger, simpler, beam engine

[Cogsy]

The Rupnow Hit and Miss is a fun engine to build and runs a dream. I'll be following your build log if you do one.

 

[Theclockworks]

If anyone wants Elmer's Beam scaled up by about 1.75x and converted to metric I can supply the plans (I haven't got round to building it yet though!).

I to would like to build this scaled up beam.

 

[rc87woody]

Not finished yet. I’m working on it in my free time.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I started this thread 12 years ago, and people are still building from it. It was so long ago that I had to look at the date on the drawings to see what year the plans were drawn in.

 

[stragenmitsuko]

Thank you for also posting the solidworks model .
I'm about to start to learn solidworks and this 'll give me something to study .

Been a 2d designer all my life ( a'cad , draftsight ... ). But now , it's time I started learning
something new wich can hopefully be used to 3d print patterns for castings and maybe
to generate g code for a cnc router .

pat

 

[rc87woody]

 

[goldstar31]

The beam type engines didn't originally turn a wheel. Instead of a wheel, the end of the beam was connected to a plunger in a pipe that pumped water out of the coal mines in Wales. I expect that the wheel was added at a later stage to get rotary motion, as the design of steam engines evolved. Eventually, somebody had the same thought you did, and the beam was done away with.

Wales? No not really.
Tin mining was England's important export from pre- Roman times. We had a Bronze Age long before this.
The problem was the flooding of the Cornish tin mines as miners dug deeper. The copper mines in North Wales stopped as the little boys who were the miners hit salt water.
As for coal mining, THREE inventors- Stephenson, Hedley and Hackworth were born in the same area around Wylam on the River Tyne. So was I- no matter! but again it was water flooding down both hillsides and obviously exacerbated by the Great Whinsill Dyke or fault on which Hadrian's Roman Wall was built much earlier.

When I did my commercial studies, we discussed Maudsley and his slide rest which revolutionises machining and our lecturer quipped about leaking pistons from bad bores and stuffed with the foreman's felt hat.

As for coal mining, I live on what were the coal seams. The bungalow is on a concrete 'float' which is more than can be said for the 'family castle'- which was undermined mined for coal- and fell down.
Somehow in the family history is the information on a painting of the first steam engine crossing the Border Bridge between England and Scotland. It's not quite true as Berwick on Tweed is now in England but is still at war with either Germany or Russia.
The painting? I have it


Norman

 

[Richard Hed]

Wales? No not really.
Tin mining was England's important export from pre- Roman times. We had a Bronze Age long before this.
The problem was the flooding of the Cornish tin mines as miners dug deeper. The copper mines in North Wales stopped as the little boys who were the miners hit salt water.
As for coal mining, THREE inventors- Stephenson, Hedley and Hackworth were born in the same area around Wylam on the River Tyne. So was I- no matter! but again it was water flooding down both hillsides and obviously exacerbated by the Great Whinsill Dyke or fault on which Hadrian's Roman Wall was built much earlier.

When I did my commercial studies, we discussed Maudsley and his slide rest which revolutionises machining and our lecturer quipped about leaking pistons from bad bores and stuffed with the foreman's felt hat.

As for coal mining, I live on what were the coal seams. The bungalow is on a concrete 'float' which is more than can be said for the 'family castle'- which was undermined mined for coal- and fell down.
Somehow in the family history is the information on a painting of the first steam engine crossing the Border Bridge between England and Scotland. It's not quite true as Berwick on Tweed is now in England but is still at war with either Germany or Russia.
The painting? I have it


Norman

That's very interesting. Can you explain more about this: It's not quite true as Berwick on Tweed is now in England but is still at war with either Germany or Russia.

When you say "Cornish" I thot you were talking about Cornwall which is in South of England, correct? But the rest of your post you are talkking about much further north, Hadrians Wall is North of Yorkshire, right? Apparently Cornish refers to some place else than I Always thot.

 

[goldstar31]

Cornwall is actually West and was as I said the scene of tin mining from ancient times. Richard Trevithic is your man if interested.
I live in Newcastle upon Tyne which was the border in Roman times and separated the Picts and Scots- from civilisation
But the border changed MANY times and there was a Roman border- in what is Lowland Scotland. It was a turf one whereas the wall buikt by Emoeror Hardian was essentially of stone. In fact the Four Foot eight and a half inch railway gauge is the Roman chariot wheel width copied by the Wylam engineers
Berwick on Tweed was 'no mans land' We taught the Wild West 'cattle rustling', The Norsemen or Vikings cam and taught 'rape and pillage'. The Moss troopers taught us how to distill whisky.
So Berwick changed its boundaries and when Britain declared war( as it often did), the signatories were England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland( all of it) and Berwick on Tweed. When peace was finally signed, it was 'back in England- and forgotten about.
One of our greatest writers was Sir Walter Scott who wrote the Border Ballads. One of ballads w ent something like this 'Lock the dorr Lariston, Lion, Lion of Liddesdale' and sort of finishes 'England shall many a day, tell of the boody fray, when the Blue Bonnets came over the Border. My late wife was a 'Liddell' and so surprisingly was 'Alice in Wonderland'.

So there you have a very potted version. I could go on about the. druids and 'cup and ring' markings.
I was sort of brought up amongst Bronze Age skeletons- and my village was the scene of the first steam turbine.
Laughingly, I was a National Park warden for Northumberland and a founder of the first civilan mountain
rescue team.

Enough for one day?

 

[BaronJ]

[QUOTE="Richard Hed,
When you say "Cornish" I thought you were talking about Cornwall which is in South of England, correct? But the rest of your post you are talkking about much further north, Hadrians Wall is North of Yorkshire, right? Apparently Cornish refers to some place else than I Always thot.
[/QUOTE]

Hi Richard,
Cornwall is about as far west as you can get in the UK but its also about as far south as well. Norman lives a bit further north of me up in Newcastle. I believe he is one of the few Haggis wranglers left.

 

[justisla]

Cornwall is actually West and was as I said the scene of tin mining from ancient times. Richard Trevithic is your man if interested.
I live in Newcastle upon Tyne which was the border in Roman times and separated the Picts and Scots- from civilisation
But the border changed MANY times and there was a Roman border- in what is Lowland Scotland. It was a turf one whereas the wall buikt by Emoeror Hardian was essentially of stone. In fact the Four Foot eight and a half inch railway gauge is the Roman chariot wheel width copied by the Wylam engineers
Berwick on Tweed was 'no mans land' We taught the Wild West 'cattle rustling', The Norsemen or Vikings cam and taught 'rape and pillage'. The Moss troopers taught us how to distill whisky.
So Berwick changed its boundaries and when Britain declared war( as it often did), the signatories were England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland( all of it) and Berwick on Tweed. When peace was finally signed, it was 'back in England- and forgotten about.
One of our greatest writers was Sir Walter Scott who wrote the Border Ballads. One of ballads w ent something like this 'Lock the dorr Lariston, Lion, Lion of Liddesdale' and sort of finishes 'England shall many a day, tell of the boody fray, when the Blue Bonnets came over the Border. My late wife was a 'Liddell' and so surprisingly was 'Alice in Wonderland'.

So there you have a very potted version. I could go on about the. druids and 'cup and ring' markings.
I was sort of brought up amongst Bronze Age skeletons- and my village was the scene of the first steam turbine.
Laughingly, I was a National Park warden for Northumberland and a founder of the first civilan mountain
rescue team.

Enough for one day?

40 years ago one of our joiners- Les Huit left to become a National Park warden for Northumberland & was a keen mountaineer.
But perhaps we can go off thread for a second & may i ask if you know what it was that my late mother (who was borne in Berwick) Called a "Puffy Dunta". The salmon fishermen used to catch them in the nets off the shad in the mouth of the Tweed.
Can you also tell me if you know where in the north part of Northumberland there are some "domes" about 6 ft high rather like eggs. A group of them. Each one big enough for one or two people. My wife & I came upon them once & when we wanted to go back & have a decent look we could not find the place. No one seems to know of them.
PM me if you know please as the Mods might get a bit upset about the thread drift.

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Richard,
Cornwall is about as far west as you can get in the UK but its also about as far south as well. Norman lives a bit further north of me up in Newcastle. I believe he is one of the few Haggis wranglers left.

I'm going off Ron Callender's book on gold ming. AhaH, John!
According to him, gold is found roughly on the 3 degree WEST line. So that includes Cornwall( as you say) but into Welsh Wales- look you, boyoh, where the Queen's wedding ring was mined, into Argyll , up into
The Grampians where I used to breed haggis- and these have two legs shorter than the others so they can run around mountains without losing height, and up into the Black Isle, north of the Loch Ness Monster. We sort of passed Killwining and apparently there was gold found whilst Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was built. Not far from the Roslyn Chapel,Knights Templar, The Apprentice's Stone--- and Dan Brown.

Apart from a teeny bit of artistic licence, it's all true. WE had a house North of the Highland Line. My wife 's ashes are scattered looking into the Lairig Ghru or as you Sassenachs would have it, the Foreboding Way.
Slange Va

Norman

 

[goldstar31]

PM me if you know please as the Mods might get a bit upset about the thread drift.

Huit? More likely to be 'Hewitt' This is basalt and granite country. Cheviot is the remains of a very old volcano.

So I've. found 12 pages of stuff. Will PM

Cheers

N

 

[fcheslop]

Hi Norm, It was Russia although the story is false
I remember the ship yards in Berwick
I though sheep south of the border looked worried not short legged
My family had a few distant relatives who met a grizzly end .A misunderstanding over sheep, cows and women they borrowed from the English

Last night a wind from Lammermoor came roaring
up the glen
With the tramp of trooping horses and the laugh of
reckless men

And struck a mailed hand on the gate and cried in
rebel glee:

"Come forth. Come forth, my Borderer, and ride the
March with me!"​

cùm gu math agus sàbhailte or something like that Im struggling to remember ,My grandfather would only speek the old language and you got a thick ear if you used english

 

[HennieL]

...The problem was the flooding of the Cornish tin mines as miners dug deeper. The copper mines in North Wales stopped as the little boys who were the miners hit salt water.

Some interesting info - there is a huge Cornish Beam Pump outside a little town called Okiep in north-western South Africa that was built by Cornish miners in 1881, that I had the pleasure of exploring (believed to be the only one still in existance in the southern hemisphere...). Okiep is on the edge of the Namib desert, and it was established as a mining town after copper was discovered in the area. Although the area is very barren, the miners encountered a heavy flow of underground water, and this beam pump was built to de-water the mine to keep it from flooding.

This pump is massive - standing four stories high, with an additional two stories basement underground. I unfortunately cannot find the photos that I took during my visit, but found some of the same pump on the internet.

Here is the pump building with part of the beam visible:

And this is a small part of the engine inside the building - the single cylinder is probably 2m in diameter, and just visible between the two vertical black pipes

And a schematic of the pump:

Brian,

Thanks for your design - I downloaded the drawings, and plan to build it as my second or third engine, once I've "wet my toes" on a simpler one to start with.

 

[Richard Hed]

Cornwall is actually West and was as I said the scene of tin mining from ancient times. Richard Trevithic is your man if interested.
I live in Newcastle upon Tyne which was the border in Roman times and separated the Picts and Scots- from civilisation
But the border changed MANY times and there was a Roman border- in what is Lowland Scotland. It was a turf one whereas the wall buikt by Emoeror Hardian was essentially of stone. In fact the Four Foot eight and a half inch railway gauge is the Roman chariot wheel width copied by the Wylam engineers
Berwick on Tweed was 'no mans land' We taught the Wild West 'cattle rustling', The Norsemen or Vikings cam and taught 'rape and pillage'. The Moss troopers taught us how to distill whisky.
So Berwick changed its boundaries and when Britain declared war( as it often did), the signatories were England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland( all of it) and Berwick on Tweed. When peace was finally signed, it was 'back in England- and forgotten about.
One of our greatest writers was Sir Walter Scott who wrote the Border Ballads. One of ballads w ent something like this 'Lock the dorr Lariston, Lion, Lion of Liddesdale' and sort of finishes 'England shall many a day, tell of the boody fray, when the Blue Bonnets came over the Border. My late wife was a 'Liddell' and so surprisingly was 'Alice in Wonderland'.

So there you have a very potted version. I could go on about the. druids and 'cup and ring' markings.
I was sort of brought up amongst Bronze Age skeletons- and my village was the scene of the first steam turbine.
Laughingly, I was a National Park warden for Northumberland and a founder of the first civilan mountain
rescue team.

Enough for one day?

Actually, No. This is very interesting stuff to me, I love anthropology, history, culture, astronomy, steam engines and a whole lot more. In the USA we get a bit of fake history, the true history is hidden very deeply becasue the powers that be, definitely, do not want the people to know what really happened--we might sharpen our pitchforks and make up a few thousand rounds of ammo. The true history of America is very chilling and other history? what? No such thing.

 

[rc87woody]

Anyone have a video link that works if this engine running? The links here are old and don’t work anymore. Lol

 

[Richard Hed]

Anyone have a video link that works if this engine running? The links here are old and don’t work anymore. Lol

and Naturally, Keiths:

many others. NOt sure whichone you want

 

[goldstar31]

For those who are intersted in such things, there is a stone circle- smaller than Stonehenge at Duddo, Berwick on Tweed.

W e haven't wandered too much as the discovery of the Megalithic Yard by Alexander Thoms. It. was calculated from the Planet Venus at various stone sites and done on the summer and winter solstices.
I read it all up in Masonic studies but that shouldn't put others off.

 

[benkeller3]

If anyone wants Elmer's Beam scaled up by about 1.75x and converted to metric I can supply the plans (I haven't got round to building it yet though!).

Wow. I would like to maybe get started with this one if you could send to to me.
Thx