Parker Steam Engines

[Blind Dog]

Thanks Edgar and Richard. A great OT thread.

[Richard Flanders]

Thanks Edgar. Not sure I'll get another chance to look at the hydro house unit to see exactly what the wheel looks like. My impression was that it looked like a paddle wheeler wheel but I could have missed something in there. I bet there's a Francis-type wheel off to the right where it goes out of the drum.

Calvin: I use that old diesel in my wood stove for firestarter. If I had an old Cat dozer I'd burn it in there. It's more like marine diesel than anything; very thick.

Here's a few more pics of a stationery engine used for power generation and some of the old cats at a silver mine on the Seward Peninsula at Omilak. The first freighting trip into this mine was in 1879 if you can believe that. 20yrs before the Nome gold rush and has seen activity into at least the middle 80's and is still owned by a friend of mine. This place is 90 miles northeast of Nome in the headwaters of the Fish River. This is about the best stationery engine I've seen in Alaska and could easily be restored to running condition. They generated power and ran a belt driven sawmill with it. The orange Allis Chalmers dozers could likely be gotten going in a few hours. The little Cat 22 is in excellent shape. These are very common in remote mine areas and were used for freighting in supplies and never had blades. There's hundreds of them scattered around Alaska; the Seward Pen is littered with them. Note that the pads are in near 100% condition. The square holes cut in the center were made to let snow out so that it didn't pack up on the rails and force the tracks off the front idler. These days we cut these holes round because the square corner holes tend to crack. This was a great spot to visit. Very remote with a brushy old airstrip.

When this thread finally comes to an end it will not be because I run out of pictures I assure you. I've spent 33yrs accumulating them. This is but a small sampling. I love this old stuff!

[Autumn Daze]

Keep going Rich....I love these old pictures...

[edgarspencer]

That isn't, by chance, Jim Tweto's suoer cub in that picture?
This thread started of looking for Parker steam engine info, but seems to have morphed into an Off Topic thread. The moderator can move it to OT if he deems fit. Hope none of the PP (Protocol Police) are too upset.
I have a lot of pictures but I'll be damned if I can access them since getting all the old stuff moved to this new computer. I have a lot more in the old format, remember when we went to the drug store to pic them up?
My old traction engine was a Peerless, but not unlike Case of that era. What the guy may have meant when he said the steam was used twice, was possibly in reference to the biggest of the Case engines that were tandem compound engines, where the steam exhausted from the high pressure cylinder into a larger, low pressure cylinder, then the steam would further expand, apply force on that piston. Large marine steam plants were multi cylinder engines where the steam went through many expansions as it passed from HP (smallest) to IP (sometimes 2 intermediate cylinders) finally into the LP, being the largest. The power of steam comes from it's expansion as it rapidly leaves the boiler, thru the cylinders. The old train wrecks could blow the whole side of a town away, if the water, under 150-250 PSI is sudden;ly allowed to reach 0 psi. What occupied a few hundred cubic feet, contained in a boiler at pressure, could become several thousand cubic feet if released to the atmosphere.
I only ran 160-180 pis in my steamboat boiler, but when the safety valve was opened, as a matter of procedure, the steam cloud up the escape pipe would go a few hundred feet into the air.
That single cylinder horizontal engine coupled to the dynamo is likely an oil engine (not quite a diesel) an had what was known as "hot tube" ignition, started by heated the tube with a torch, or oil flame. The tube was kept hot after the engine was running. It is likely (I sent the picture to an old engine friend. He's old, and loves old engines, having about 100) It's likely very valuable.
Here's a picture or two of an engine I passed onto an older friend, with the promise it comes back to me when he dies (hopefully before me, and I still have enough to buy it back from his wife) It was built pre civil war, probably 1845-1855, and may have been the oldest I ever had. It was probably the only 'small' engine I truely loved.

[Autumn Daze]

Edgar, What would a small steam engine like the one pictured be used for? A boat perhaps?

[Blind Dog]

Superheated water released to atmospheric pressure; instant potential energy to kinetic. Read about the "Sultana" and other riverboat and raiiroad disasters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. We had a serious explosion of a traction engine boiler here at the Medina County fair a few years ago.

[Richard Flanders]

That is pretty Edgar. Looks like it cleaned up very nicely. What a jewel. Hope you can get it back someday. That's my PA-12. There's a real treasure laying in the bushes beside that stationery engine - a pile of 100+ pcs of narrow gauge rail that has never been used. The RR club here in Fairbanks would kill for that pile! Wish I could get it to them somehow.

[Richard Flanders]

Here's a few pics of the engines on a floating bucket line dredge in Flat, Alaska. Took these on my July 4 trip there this summer. This place is one of the very best places in Alaska to see incredible "rust". This dredge was shut down in 1962 with the idea of leaving it easy to get going again. The large engine is complete and could likely be gotten going in a few hours. I think the smaller engine drives a compressor used to air start the larger engine. This is one of the best preserved dredges in Alaska. The best preserved unit is 3 miles upriver from this one and, having been in operation until just a few years ago, is ready to go with the turn of a single key.

[edgarspencer]

To give an example of the sizes of antique machinery at the 'other' end of the spectrum, here's an 1875 Edward S Clark steam launch engine made in Boston. This engine would have comfortably pushed a launch of 25 to 30 feet, and swing a prop around 16". When you consider the detail that gunsmiths of the same period were required to achieve, this is crude by comparison, but considered by steam nuts, not unlike myself, to be a real find. It's about 2' feet tall and one of the few pieces of my steam stuff my wife lets me keep indoors, occupying a window seat in the den. I took this about 10:30 last night hence the lousy lighting.

[Old and Reliable]

IMO- this has been the most interesting thread, and with a series of great photos with details about something than is not 100% a Parker shotgun. I think I am on safe ground when I say that the majority of the PGCA membership loves mechanical devices of all types, their history.

Rich- you are 100% right about the square cut (or punched) holes in the treads and stress- a circle or arc distributes stress- segue to early LC Smiths for an example- first series Syracuse guns had a rectangular with 90% corners lug that mated into the receiver slot- later they radiused the front corners to relieve stress--

Old timers trick in welding up a crack or fracture-- from each end of the crack- move about 1/4" back and drill a small pilot hole through the metal- skip and back-step the weld, and weld up the holes last-plus proper pre-heat and post-weld heat wrap to slow down the air cooling--

I think we all owe these PGCA brothers a big stand up round of either: (a) applause, or better yet (2) drinks of their choice for this great thread--and it might lead into a future article for PP- Parker & Snow vises, Parker steam engines-- etc!!