Engine assembly on a large scale..

[GreenV8S]

J-c said:

Mate did this

Did he do that by hand? It looks extremely cool and I'd think people would pay good money for that. I hate to think how many hours it must have taken.

[J-c]

He did it by hand took him a few months/might be weeks then sold it on ebay

£500

[theironduke]

Brunellian

Epic stuff, Brunel is a hero of mine. Read a fair bit about him and the thing which i find particulary amazing is just how relentless he was, he just never stopped, the man was a true workaholic (and genious) and it was his this which killed him. The mans ambition, imagination, foresight and dynamism really are humbling.

[Fatboy]

cazzer said:

Just makes me nostalgic over what this country was and what it is now.

Bet there isn't an engineering shop left in this country that could build that now.

I normally work at one

Not many left, true, but the Barrow shipyard used to make similar sized equipment, and still has the capability to handle some truly massive machining tasks.

I'd imagine the Rosyth yards could do it as well - though being as neither yard has built engines for quite some time it might not go too smoothly

[hidetheelephants]

Fatboy said:

cazzer said:

Just makes me nostalgic over what this country was and what it is now.

Bet there isn't an engineering shop left in this country that could build that now.

I normally work at one

Not many left, true, but the Barrow shipyard used to make similar sized equipment, and still has the capability to handle some truly massive machining tasks.

I'd imagine the Rosyth yards could do it as well - though being as neither yard has built engines for quite some time it might not go too smoothly

Indeed, there are a few workshops big enough and equipped for the job, but there is no call for it; the last slow speed diesel works on the Clyde shut around 1987, the same time as Scotts' shipyard in Greenock. If no-one is building ships, no-one will build engines for them; 90+% of the world output of slow speed diesels are made in Japan, Korea and China, which uncoincidentally are the countries where most of the world's shipbuilding goes on. Trivia fact; the market leader in these engines is Burmeister & Wain, who are wholely owned by MAN. They don't make many engines themselves; they flog licences to the Koreans and Chinese who churn out all the shonkily built ships mugs like me have to maintain and run. The Japs tend to favour native talent and use Mitsubishi designs. I've not had practical experience of either Sulzer or Wartsila slow speed engines, but their market share suggests they either need to sack the marketing dept, or they aren't any good at designing engines.

ETA
The british enginebuilders Doxford were pioneers of slow speed engines, just as B&W were, but they lost market share in the 1970s as shipbuilding moved to the far east; they ceased production in 1980. Perhaps if they had marketed themselves to the Koreans and Japanese more intensively they would still exist; B&W would have vanished years ago without licence royalties from Korean and Chinese enginebuilders.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Saturday 7th November 20:39

[sneijder]

It's amazing how one thread leads to something else.

After Fatman mentioned Barrow, I looked this up :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_and_sub...

Impressive stuff, I didn't know they built ships for the Japanese Navy.

Come on Fatman, tell us some stories, there must be some !

[Taffer]

hidetheelephants said:

I've not had practical experience of either Sulzer or Wartsila slow speed engines, but their market share suggests they either need to sack the marketing dept, or they aren't any good at designing engines.

Wartsila are known for their four strokes, and bought over Sulzer about a decade ago. I don't think they design crap engines (no problems with the ones I've worked on), so I'd go with the marketing types not convincing companies to invest in a relatively new company to the 2-stroke market.

Hidetheelephants, I assume your oral board went OK? Who have you got a job with now? I'm stuck off Aberdeen at about the halfway point of my sea time, off to do some DP work next week. Floating in one spot for days....fun, fun, fun!

[King Herald]

Taffer said:

hidetheelephants said:

I've not had practical experience of either Sulzer or Wartsila slow speed engines, but their market share suggests they either need to sack the marketing dept, or they aren't any good at designing engines.

Wartsila are known for their four strokes, and bought over Sulzer about a decade ago. I don't think they design crap engines (no problems with the ones I've worked on), so I'd go with the marketing types not convincing companies to invest in a relatively new company to the 2-stroke market.

Hidetheelephants, I assume your oral board went OK? Who have you got a job with now? I'm stuck off Aberdeen at about the halfway point of my sea time, off to do some DP work next week. Floating in one spot for days....fun, fun, fun!

I think Sulzer you speak of are/were part of the original Sulzer Burckhardt corporation that built/build huge air compressors. They are now called Burckhardt Compression. My job is maintaining three of these bad boys on a seismic survey ship.

Here is yours truly sitting astride one cylinder, fitting a new stuffing gland. The big chunk of hardware in the foreground, with the filter poking out the top, is a 22" diameter double acting first stage cylinder, that merely doubles atmospheric pressure, and the following four stages bump it gradually up. It produces 1600cfm, at 2000 psi. Power comes from an 800hp electric motor, that weighs five tons.

[Taffer]

Interesting - Wartsila must have only bought the engine-making part of Sulzer then.

That compressor is impressive - our Sperres are only powered by 15hp motors, but they only need to provide enough puff for the starting air system!

[matty_doh]

Very cool, much prefer there attitude to safety then too! Didn't have to carry around a little homo-bag full of PPE gear.

Though feck me, I thought my overalls were ropey coloured!, those brown ones look like over-full sick bags

Edited by matty_doh on Sunday 8th November 00:41

[buggalugs]

I remember these from a thread the other week - I saved the link

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/William_Doxfo...

It's William Doxford & Sons ship engine builders.

[GreenV8S]

King Herald said:

It produces 1600cfm, at 2000 psi.

Is this the supply mentioned to turn the main engine over to start it, or is there some other devious purpose?

[Taffer]

GreenV8S said:

King Herald said:

It produces 1600cfm, at 2000 psi.

Is this the supply mentioned to turn the main engine over to start it, or is there some other devious purpose?

Unlikely - I'd imagine it's part of the seismic survey equipment onboard Herald's ship. They seem a bit overpowered for starting air compressors!

[taldo]

staggeringly brilliant photos

[thinfourth2]

Pesty said:

I wonder how much pressure this guy is under. The crank is almost fully assembled and he is doing some machine cutting I think.

One slip and he not the most popular man in the factory

Edited by Pesty on Saturday 7th November 16:54

One slip in the wrong direction and he would be all over the factory

[King Herald]

GreenV8S said:

King Herald said:

It produces 1600cfm, at 2000 psi.

Is this the supply mentioned to turn the main engine over to start it, or is there some other devious purpose?

It's used to fire 'air guns', that make an enormous bang underwater, that they measure the echo from to build 3D piccies of what is 'down there'.

[fridaypassion]

wowzers thats proper sexy stuff!

[thinfourth2]

Steamer said:

Crumbs!!

The head gasket has a bigger surface area than my flat!!

...and not a pair of safety goggles in sight!

I doubt as its a doxford

They didn't have cylinder heads

[shirt]

thats awesome, i alwasy wondered how they did that! any idea how they make the block?

ps -whats damon albarn doing in pic 4?

[thinfourth2]

The block as you know it is a one piece casting. On these it is so stupidly big a casting is beyond practical so the only way they can do it is to fabricate it from lumps of steel