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This is your last chance to step back into the past and see steam engines still chugging along as they did more than a century ago. Volunteers adopt a tractor and restore them and keep them running in tip top shape. Of course, in addition to the old steam engines, you'll see a zillion John Deere, Farmall and Cats of all shapes and sizes.
The wheels on the side of the tractors are for belts that run all sorts of attachments from grain and corn milling machines to all sorts of antique machines in the blacksmith shop and elsewhere. The last day is today and it's well worth the time with plenty to see and great food all in abundance.
-Rod
Follow Ups:
I can WALK there in 15 minutes. Been there since I moved here. New school at entry kind of ruined the environment, but place is still priceless.
Too much is never enough
I spent a lot of my youth going to shows throughout new england-
Whites, coorlis, abercrombie, shingle mills, tractors, donkeys and the like-
miss it - just a bit...
Happy Listening
n
At the milling shop, they had a hand crank miller and one run with a belt. Ten minutes on the crank will get you enough corm mill for a quarter of a muffin. Who knew? These guys.
Of course the powered mill was way faster and separated the corn flour from the larger chunks to be used for chicken feed. Then, we got the whole story on how if worked and how to adjust the stones for corn versus wheat for flour. Interesting stuff.
-Rod
Those are some seriously primitive machines. That first one looks like an explosion waiting to happen. When I was a kid my dad dragged me out to see the "threshing machines" at a county fair. Amazing to watch, and to listen to. The sound of the steam, all the flywheels whizzing, and belts slapping. Cool.
Explosion was also in my thoughts, since I knew a guy who once saved a fireman's muster because he happened to have a steam engineers license. He said he was a stationary engineer For a store in New York and went to see the show when the steam operator didn't make the scene.
Said he was standing on a back platform of the engine when it hit him how dangerous an explosion could be, there were grandstands full of people. Said he felt the pressure, even though the task was no sweat, they just needed a guy with a license to make it legal.
The event pictured is quite a different deal, I would suppose most of the owners are very in touch with the condition of the machine in operation. Seeing antique machines in motion is a key to understanding and enjoyment, for me.
I once lit off the boiler in the steamship Dauntless, a yacht built before income taxes as a gift to a car company heiress and used as an operations command ship in WW2. The thing had Leopard skin upholstery in the observation dining room, among other things. It's now restored as a rental in Monaco, but I bet the skins are gone. . THe ENgine was the latest , at the time, pistons in triple expansion array. (Steam Turbines were one of the reasons it was sold for a dollar to the merchant marines.)
THe steam cylinders were machine turned on the outside, and chemically treated black, perhaps to better set off the brass eagles topping the cylinder heads. The last , final expansion cylinder was perhaps four feet across. Must have been hell to work there, I didn't see any insulation, perhaps because of the decorative work on the exposed metal. I was just there to light it off , for practical understanding, and didn't bring it to pressure, not even hot.
This was the only historical marine engine had been exposed to, and don't know beyond what I saw.
Wait a minute, I just remembered, the usual steam ships I once sailed are now historic, slow speed diesel uses less fuel. I've sailed ships that cost a quarter million bucks to fuel, and ships use bunker "C" the hardly refined cheap stuff . Of course, after the first fuel crisis, when oil costs went way up , they were sold to the military.
Ship power is continuing to evolve.
Down in San Deigo, the aircraft carrier Midway uses double or triple expansion TURBINES which have a very high inlet pressure and use 'live steam'. 700psi? 800psi? That's 1940s 'high tech'.
I was on a double paddle wheel ship in Lake Lucerne which had a horizontal shaft across the beam of the ship connected to several huge pistons. This was on a 100 year old vessel. This thing was PERFECT and you could eat off the engine room deck.
But today? Lots of hybrid systems, Diesel-Electric in cruise ships. The largest cruise ships use multiple Diesel Engines, of 12 and 14 cylinders. And run ONLY what they need, saving fuel and engine wear.
Military uses LM2500 gas turbines of up to 22,000kw output. In commerical use, it is possible to use the AZIPOD system and delete the need for Rudders, when used with Bow Thrusters.
High efficiencies are possible, mainly driven by fuel costs.
The WIKI I link will have the details.
Too much is never enough
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