ENGINES ENGINES ENGINES

After a tip off from one of my mates about a large collection of aero engines, my big sis Jennie and I decided to take my young nephew Matthew to the Science Museum, London.

In the picture above- the legendary Rolls Royce Merlin, and below, a Napier Lion mounted in a vintage power boat. I love Napier Lions for their W12 engine layout and have seen them strapped into Brooklands race cars such as Chris William's Napier Bentley aptly named 'Pure Laxatives,' noise, oil, smoke and fire - woo yeah!

As well as radials there are some chemistry set looking jet engines which have inspired a new project, if I can find a knackered one....

And some space ship rocket engines that look like cocktail machines and Daleks.

We had a great day out, running around, and playing hide and seek until Matthew climbed into one of the displays of engines and got stuck. The 3 of us even managed to get stuck in a lift which was a first for all of us and was hilarious as we were rescued. If your in town the science museum is strongly recommended by The Rag and Bone Man.

JACOBS R-755-9. 1942.

Doesn't this WWII relic look settled at the end of the workshop... this stunning piece of engineering is a Jacobs R-755-9, a seven-cylinder, air-cooled, radial engine for aircraft manufactured in the United States. It has a dry weight of 505 lb (229 kg) which wasn't easy to manhandle out the back of a van to its current resting place by myself. The engine has a displacement of 757 cu in (12.4 L). When this was made engineers were engineers and did not have computers to help them design power plants. How did they know where to put all the oil chanels in the casting and what size they should be? Trial and error I guess? 

 

We collected the engine from an american ex pilot called Robert, who used to fly this type of aircraft and engine.

Robert informed me that the Jacobs was accepted by the USAAC on 1-16-1942 on contract #W535AC20630 and mounted on a Stearman PT-18 which was flown from one of the primary training fields around Phoenix, Arizona.  The Stearman was later stored at Williams Airfield near Chandler, Arizona and at some point sold to an aircraft salvage yard in Chandler from which Robert recovered the engine (and others by the sound of it) the airframes having been scrapped.

Robert brought them to England in a container. The  Stearman was a bi-plane used to train young pilots during the war.

 

Some of the cylinder heads are damaged and the pistons are frozen in position so the crankshaft does not turn, I will carefully try to free this up and do my best to respectfully dismantle the rusty hulk.

I hope to honour the history of this engine with some research and a lot of hardwork to turn it into something similar to my previous chandelier below. Chandler, Arizona to Chandelier in 70 years, watch this space......

COSTERMONGER'S BARROW.

On my travels Sunday morning whilst looking for a new/old club hammer, (the modern fibre glass shaft broke on mine, as most modern tools do) I came across this lovely market barrow with expertly carved inscriptions. I think the hand barrow was for sale, if I only had room.

With some more research I have found that the barrow was made by Edward Howard of 23 Wheeler street Spitalfields (now Quaker st) Howard built barrows for hire to the costermongers who bought produce wholesale at Spitalfields Market. Costermongers sold fruit and vegetables from barrows in the crowded streets of the East End.

I love the leaf spring set up, they don't make them like this any more.

 Below is a link to a great article from the Spitalfields life blog.

 http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/03/25/the-barrows-of-spitalfields/

METAL HEAVEN.

PROPER JOB.

Here's a few snaps of my house mates favourite saucepan that I repaired for the house. Nice French aluminium bicycle crank arm, broken but perfect for the job. I love it when I can fix something with a re purposed object.

BACK TO WORK.

After a nice break we are back to work! My new chandelier project, this one is off to Canada I think, I am looking forward to getting stuck into working it all out, once I get some other commissions finished, more on this to come as it progresses.

Aero cylinder heads waiting to be turned into a new style of stools that I am working on, and below the crankshaft and master con rod from the Lycoming engine, this has been a nightmare to pull apart but it will make a stunning lamp when I figure out how to put it all back together.

Massive thanks to Rob at Sergent and Co for helping me out with break levers, as I seem to be making more coat hooks these days, I am currently working on some larger versions.

My new tea drinking/thinking seat that I found in a giant scrapyard on a trip out of London, I believe its from an old crane, I decided to leave the padding inside the steel bucket and its comfier than it looks.

The bit you sit on was made from old pallet wood (which may get upgraded when the right thing comes along) the frame work on the under side had to be beefed up from when I had a tractor seat mounted to the wall.

 These images below are from some future projects that I have on the drawing board, more on these to come.