May/June
2001
PARAFFINALIA
No 10
Hello
All!
Saying of the
month: How about the actual wording of the patents which make some
of our toys work? This is the wording of Nicolaus Otto's British Patent
No 2081, of 1876, which states: "Compressing by one in-stroke of the piston,
a charge drawn in by the previous out-stroke so that the compressed charge,
when ignited, propels the piston on its next out-stroke and the products
of combustion are expelled by the next in-stroke of the piston." It is generally
accepted that Otto was unaware at the time of the patent taken out by Frenchman,
Alphonse Beau de Rochas in 1862, as follows:" 1. Induction during the outward
stroke of the piston; 2. Compression during the return stroke; 3 Ignition
at the dead point, followed by expansion of the third stroke; and 4. Discharge
of the burned gases from the cylinder during the fourth and last stroke"
To think that bombshell was lying around for 14 years, waiting to be thought
out again! And look how similar the wording is!
NEWS:
Since last newsletter, several people have contacted me saying they have
either found, or recovered engines or machines that they have been promised.
Pete Hundy sent
in a message, saying that he and Yuri Peila had gone to
collect the Crossley which Pete had been promised some time ago. It's a
HH7, Serial No 129221, 25 HP at 375 RPM. It is still in 100 pieces, having
been stripped about 40 years ago! I have now found out that the gentleman
who gave it to him is the one who gave the blacksmithing demonstration
on Nico Lubbe's video of the threshing day (Haven't ordered
your copy yet? Nico can be contacted on 021 913 1380). He was years ago
the agent for Fendt tractors, a position I have been proud to hold for the last
16 years! (There is a fascinating article on page 35 of the February-March
Australlian 'The Old Machinery Magazine' about a Fendt, which was 'discovered'
under a lantana bush by a bulldozer doing some bush clearing. It had not
been used since 1963, the wheels were still pumped up, and the engine started
first turn!)
Dries and Mynhardt
Mulder wrote in to say that they have arranged a lorry with a crane
to transport the heavy parts of Julian Melck's Fairbanks
Morse Model YH's.
They plan to do the restoration
at home in Hopefield, and to lean on Hermann Geldenhuys' experience
gained while restoring a similar engine . They also discovered a Delcolite
set at Dries' brother-in-law's farm in Richmond, and in the same area, an
intact large Ruston, and a Stover.
Johan Mundey wrote
in to say that he's collected two interesting machines which were used in
the production of rooibos tea:
One is a cutter, the other
is a 'bruiser'. If Johan restores these to the standard of his nearly-finished
Stamford mill, then he'll have good reason to be proud
:
:
He also wrote that he was still battling to get information on the missing parts for his Bentall engine. The Old Machinery Magazine came to the rescue, with a well timed article on exactly the same engine and its restoration in Australia, which will be an enormous help to Johan.
While talking about engines
promised......since seeing the Ruston & Hornsby 3X HR at Deon
Jordaan's farm, more than a year ago, (as reported in Stationary
Engine Magazine) we had been on to him on several occasions to either let
us restore it, or to encourage Johan Stemmet to do the
same. Deon had said all along that he would prefer that the engine
should stay in the area where it had worked. (Not 5km from where my 2Y HR
spent its working life, by the way!) Just a bit of threatening from Deon
got Johan into action. The engine is away to Robertson, and is progressing
well, and will soon be in action again, with new rings which Johan found
in the stores of Wolhuter's!
Philip Gray-Taylor and I found an excuse to inspect progress there, and were very impressed. We had a good look around Johan's collection, and he took us to see some local sights, which were enough to make a story for yet another 'Engine Hunt' article for Stationary Engine Magazine. We were very excited to find a very rare National vertical engine, dating from the '30s. It's in the good hands of Pieter Redelinghuys, who intends to restore it. We had a peek at a Ruston & Hornsby 2X HR, in very good 'as last used' condition, and only discovered later that it belongs to long-time member, Alwyn Bruwer. Maybe seeing a picture of it in a UK magazine will encourage Alwyn to restore it? We each came away from Johan with a project to carry on with, in Philip's case, a generator and control board and cast base for one of his many Lister Ds (now he's looking for a radiator to complete the set!). I came away from Johan with a 2-cylinder opposed piston pressure pump, with lots of brass, which had been thrown out of Robertson Museum as 'junk'. It's well on its way to being fully restored, and will look impressive, if I may say so!
John Bull from
Stanford 'phoned in to say that he'd managed to get hold of a 2-cylinder
Stuart Turner Marine, which only needed a bit of fresh petrol to bring it
back to life.
Derick Kleynhans
let us know that he had been meaning to look at 'an old Lister'
which he'd been promised for a long time. Well, he eventually got around
to looking at it, and was astounded to find that it was certainly no Lister,
but was unsure of what it was, as the nane plates had been removed. He asked
around, and by the time he'd mentioned the fact that it was a vertical,
spark ignition, with big spindly flywheels, some of us were thinking....
Fairbanks Morse....Sure enough, it's an FM Jack of all Trades, dating from
1914! You can be sure he wasn't casual any longer, and it was very soon
safely on the back of his bakkie:
Australian News: As a result of a recent article in Stationary Engine Magazine, in which our Society received quite a bit of coverage, including about our Clayton & Shuttleworth Trusty engine, we were contacted by a very excited Peter Ogborne, from Trigg, a seaside suburb of Perth, Western Australia. After three years of trying, he had managed to get hold of a 'real' Trusty (like Tim Macaire's). Peter is a member of the Machinery Preservation Club of Western Australia, and they meet on Tuesdays at a place called Midland, where they occupy a disused railway shed (wouldn't we all like to have one?) Weekly reports so far have the engine nearly completely stripped. They don't mess around over there!
As with our C&S Trusty, a lot of the parts concerned with the lamp-start and governing are missing, so we have been able to help them, in theory at least, to work out what to make, based on the information we have collected from Tim Macaire and Patrick Knight in England, and Ron Keech and the Timms brothers in Australia. It felt strange to be passing information we had received from the far side of Oz, back to this side!
The Timms collection which
was mentioned in the last newsletter has been the subject of a five-page
article in a recent Stationary Engine Magazine article, where it is described
as possibly the biggest collection of stationary engines in the world, at
a guess, over 1000 engines. They have 50 Felix engines....... never heard
of them? Well they're made in Switzerland and there are only 100 or so in
the whole of Australia, half of them with the Timms!
Steam Train
Trip This has had to be cancelled, owing to a massive increase
in the charges made by the Railways for the service. Pity. I hope I have
contacted everybody already who expressed an interest in coming along.
New Members.(Remember,
membership involves opening and reading the newsletter only, no rules, no
subs!) Mentioned above are the following new members: John Bull
from Stanford, Pieter Redelinghuys from Robertson
and Peter Ogborne in Perth, WA.Two more members are Dave
Acker and Trevor Main. Dave collects Mercedes
Benz cars and has now many different models, and Trevor helps him mechanically.
Dave has given us a two cylinder Worthington steam pump, in return for cosmetically
doing up another one which he has. Trevor worked at Ian Dickie, where we
get our Lister and Petter parts from now. Jacques Bouilliart
from Elgin has also joined up, and his expertise with boilers might be a
great help. He has a business in Gauteng called Applied Heat. He also has
a collection of old and new very fast cars! We also have now two
members in the USA. Bob Lemmert has an old Hardie wooden-tank
animal-drawn spray machine, powered by an Arco open crank engine. He wrote
an article on its restoration in the Gas Engine Magazine. I have just taken
over the restoration of a similar machine, and wrote him a letter for help.
He responded immediately, and has been sending very helpful information
and photos. Allen Shively is his friend who helped him
in the restoration. I hope they will keep us informed about what's going
on across the pond.
Tractor &
Engine Club I have been sent a number of forms to fill
in to record your treasures on a national level, sent out by the new umbrella
organisation SAVTEK (SA Veteran Tractor & Engine Clubs.) Please let
me know if you want one, and I'll send it on. This may well be a way of
preventing our heritage being exported, I don't know!
For Sale /
Available: Remember, Philip Gray-Taylor
has a good selection of engine transfers, as advertised
in Stationary Engine Magazine, and he can also supply stickers of the official
shape Ruston, in gold, in any length. They came out in 7", and 9".
Special offer Lister D transfers @ R30
postage paid in R.S.A.
He also
has a locally-developed type of flat-belt fastener which you break off the
length you need accorcing to the width of your belt, and hammer it down
on a flat surface, or squeeze it with a G-clamp. Ideal for the rally-field!
Contact him on (021) 5523247, or ptaylor@worldonline.co.za.
Paraffin. Dries
Mulder wrote in to say that he has tracked down the formula
which was mentioned in one of the last Vintage Tractor & Engine Club
magazines (Volume 27, August 1997), as 15% Petrol, 10% Diesel and 75% Illuminating
Paraffin (Lampolie). Oom Jannie du Toit has been using
jet fuel, which was called Avtur, but is now reported to be called
Jet A1, which works well in his tractors, and does not stain or
lift the paintwork.
Engine Valves.
Richard Hulse from the Austin Healey Register in Gauteng has a
website with a list of thousands of different engine valves for all sizes
of engine. They are not listed by make, but more helpfully for us, by dimension.
He can be reached at richulse@freemail.absa.co.za, and his street
address is PO Box 310, Halfway House, 1685.
Wanted:
Philip Gray-Taylor is looking for a flywheel for an early Norman
two cylinder opposed engine with the fins for cooling cast into the wheel,
and also is desperate for a Wico EK magneto, in any condition, so that he
can tackle the Massey Harris engine he got from Christie van der
Westhuizen.
Paul Evans is looking for spare copies of any technical books, instructions, parts lists, anything like that, or good photostat copies of them, so that he can put them onto his website, so that they can be downloaded free of charge to anybody in the world. Contact him on pwevans@enterprise.net.
What's On:
Saturday 30th June 2001. 2nd Annual Winter Warm-Up at Arthur's place, Trade Winds, next to L'Ormarins in Groot Drakenstein, on the R45 between Simondium and Franschhoek. The Steam Train is definitely laid on, there will be a bar, food will be organised by the Lions Club of de Grendel, members of the Early Ford Club, Classic Motorcycle Club and Crankhandle Club will be there. In case you think this will be the same little affair as last year, think again. The train is bringing 400 people!! And they will be at the site for about four hours! So we've got a captive audience, and now we've got to keep them entertained. So please, if you're not sure whether it'll be worth coming, bring something along and make a noise, and this goes for anybody with a tractor, steam engine, collectable car, bike, anything interesting.......don't forget the driven machinery with your engines also! Last year's Winter Warm-up was featured in the pages of the UK Old Glory magazine, let's see whether we can make a bigger splash this year! BE THERE!
Friday 10th & Saturday 11th August, 2001. Groot Skou at Brandvlei Prison Farm. (Thursday 9th is a public holiday, Women's Day, so businesses might be happy to give the Friday off in lieu)
?? th September, 2001. Heidelberg Museum, Open Day, Please bring along something to make a noise, and show how things were done in the old days. Please support this, as Derick takes the trouble to come all the way to our shows!
7th to 10th September, 2001. Are the dates of the Caledon Spring Festival/Lentefees. Hermann Geldenhuys and Tizzie have suggested that we attend with some engines and machines, in the vicinity of the Ransomes Portable and Threshing drum. We are most welcome to be there on the Saturday, when there will be floats, Drompoppies, the works, going right past us. For those who may want to come along but are not interested in engines, the main flower show is right opposite.
Friday 19th & Saturday 20th October, 2001 Villiersdorp Show. A special field has been set aside and will be planted, for harvesting in the old-fashioned way. The whole accent of the vintage section of this show will be on working exhibits.
Early November 2001 Bien Donne Show!
Please remember your name-tags, even if you are just coming along as a spectator! (I have made a whole lot more, and will give them out at the Winter Warm-up)
Andy Selfe, Sec. (021)8592430 (home & manual fax) e-mail aselfe@mweb.co.za