Posted by Jerry on August 3rd, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal
My daughter alerted me to this movie – she did a tightwire act for the opening of this movie in New Zealand. Man on Wire tells the story of how in 1974, a young French man Philippe Petit walked a tightrope illegally rigged between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.
The feet itself is amazing – dancing on the tightwire for over an hour before being arrested in what has been called the ‘art crime of the century’. He was later released – I guess his biggest crime was to embarrass the WTO security folks who did not pick up on: someone carrying hundreds of metres of steel cable; smuggling a bow and arrows to get the first wire across; and then spending all night on the roof with his friends rigging the wire!
After six years of planning Petit achieved his feat and walked among the clouds. This movie should get much wider attention than it has received so far. What do you think? You can see how to build your own tightwire rig here.
Cheers
Jerry
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The Locomobile steam car at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa is described as “circa 1901”. I have a feeling it might be an early 1902 model. It is chassis number 555 and has the Stanhope type two body with the ogee shaped front, rather than the flat upright dashboard.
The Locomobile was designed and built by the Stanley Brothers from 1899-1904. In 1901 they sold the Locomobile company, and bought it back a year later – making a profit both times. They produced the most successful steam car of its day – around 4000 were built in total, before the Stanley company produced cars under its own name until 1927.
The cars were simple and quite fast for their day, winning several hill-climbs. They could take off with enough acceleration to lift the front wheels and were quite popular as runabouts. But they had quite a short range – 20-30 miles between water stops as they had no condenser to recycle the exhaust steam back into the boiler.
The early ones had a two-cylinder Masson engine, but these were not very reliable, being prone to breakdowns. But this was fixed by late 1901 when FE and FO Stanley designed their own engine.
Henry Seth Taylor (1833-1887) built Canada’s first self-propelled buggy in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada in 1867. The buggy took seven years to build. The boiler was wood-fired and operated at 60lbs pressure. The four wheeled single seat open carriage had tiller steering and carried the water tank over the front axle.
Here is a view of the engine from the underside
On its second run, inventor and builder Taylor crashed it (he had neglected to install brakes), after which he abandoned automobile production and turned his attention to building a steam yacht. The buggy can be seen today in the Canada Science and Technology museum. Canada’s first car was given recognition in 1993 by being depicted on a Canada Post stamp.
Posted by Jerry on May 29th, 2008 — Posted in History, Steam
It looks like many other 1920s cars, but this one would meet the most severe emissions controls. Steam cars are like that. The 1921 Stanley tourer at the Ottawa Science and Technology museum is in excellent condition – and is in good hands to stay that way.
Although Stanley was the most commercially successful steam car, they were never produced in the sort of numbers that gave the Ford Model T its name. By 1921 the Stanley was showing its age with conservative engineering and was no longer really competitive with comparable internal combustion engined cars. They took around a half hour to drive off from cold, and even with the radiator-style condenser, they still only went about 150 miles on 24 gallons of water and similar distance running on kerosene with a 20 gallon fuel tank.
These cars could certainly keep up with the traffic of the day, but the complicated firing up ritual and the ever-present risk of explosion made these a car for the enthusiast, rather than the commuter. There was no need for a conspiracy to put these cars out of business – economics of small scale production and a failure to develop a truly competitive vehicle was quite sufficient. It wasn’t until the ill-fated and over-priced Doble that steam cars really showed a practical alternative to the internal combustion engine – and with petrol prices climbing and concerns about emissions mounting, there may yet be a market for a well-designed sleek modern steam car (perhaps a hybrid with compressed air for that quick start in the morning). But they have their charm and I would be very happy to drive one of these today!
Yes I’ve been neglecting this blog a little, but grab a cuppa because this is really neat 🙂
It was my birthday recently and a pleasant surprise arrived right on time from the USA. It was a package – tantalisingly box-like
When I opened it, out came a package of metal bits and a reassuringly large instruction manual from Graham Industries – a detailed working live steam model engine. It is a single-cylinder, double acting engine with a stephenson link reversing gear – the sort you get on steam trains.
I borrowed a beading tray from Sharon to prevent the loss of small parts – the bolts are tiny and in good scale with the engine.
And so I set to work on the assembly. The manual opened with a lovely line drawing showing the relationship of components and separate drawings of the valve gear
The cylinder and piston assembly was first – and the manual was well illustrated with step-by-step photos. The package even included proper paper gaskets to ensure proper sealing.
Then came the valve gear – a slide valve that would move up and down to reveal the ports in sequence
Then it was time to assemble the frame
The crankshaft followed with the valve eccentrics, the beautifully machined brass flywheel, and the connecting rod was added to the crank-pin
And finally the engine was complete. The detail is fantastic. Each of the bolts holding moving parts runs in a brass bushing to minimise friction, and the engine runs on fairly low pressure air or steam.
Here is the completed engine.
I did a test run first using a tiny air compressor run off my car’s cigarette lighter, and it ran briefly before one of the bolts vibrated loose on the reversing gear. This was fixed with a light dab of loctite, and then I adjusted the valve timing lightly (yes it is fully tunable!) until it ran well in both directions from the air compressor.
But a steam engine isn’t a steam engine unless it runs on steam is it? So, not having a boiler to hand I went for the next best thing – a milk steamer from a cappucino machine – it had a steam valve to act as a throttle, and with a couple of bits of clear plastic tubing (fuel line) I stepped down the size so it would fit on both the milk steamer and the engine. And within moments, the engine ran smoothly – without the harshness I found running it on air – and without the problem of possibly setting off the smoke alarms!
Here is a view of the engine from the underside
