Parker Steam Engines

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Dave Suponski

Great pictures Rich.I think you showed us these before but I enjoyed them just as much the second time.I think steam engines are wonderful especially old steam locomotives. They are as close to a living/breathing machine as you can get!

My sentiments, exactly.
If you're feeling adventurous, make a trip up into the Allagash to see the two abandoned locomotives that were used to haul trees from Chamberlain Lake to Moosehead lake. They were used right up until the early 60s (1960s)

[Richard Flanders]

"Between the wars" would be correct for these. They would have been in place prior to 1934 when the hydro was put in place. After that, they ran 2 dredges at the same time on the hydro system, which was run at 800kW with a 1.1mW capability. I'll put in a shot of the generator in the hydro power house, which was used until late in 1989 I think. Pics show the genset, flywheel, and the Pelton wheel housing. The Pelton is fed through a 5ft? diameter wooden pipe with 70ft of fall. Pipe made of incredible clear fir I think, or cedar. I'll add a pic of that and the penstock

[edgarspencer]

Love that old Woodward governor. (Seems we got off Parker steam engines)
70' head isn't much for a Pelton. That's more appropriate for Francis wheels.
I was supposed to go restart a Pelton unit on the N end of Kodiak at the fish cannery, but the guy who bought the place got sidetracked when the oil well blew up in the gulf, spill clean-up or something.
We cast a new Pelton wheel for Newport News Industrial several years ago to replace one taken out by rubble that came down the penstock after an earthquake. As I recall that one had a head height of over 600'.
You would have loved to visit the pump-hydro station out here that contracted me for 64 new wicket gates (32 per, 2 Mitsubishi turbines) The wicket gates were just shy of 7' high, not counting top and bottom shaft, CA6NM stainless, a hair over 3000 pound each. Turbine was horizontal, wheel was nearly 30 diameter. 400MW each. Twin ball valves with 10' bore. Best part was it was all inside a mountain,and radio controlled from 75 miles away.

[Richard Flanders]

If it's steam power you want, here's some good ones from my 2008 project. This includes a boiler that I think was never fired, a single-cyl compressor of sorts that was going to be run in reverse by steam, and a lumber planer/edger that was going to be driven by a belt off the large flywheel on the compressor. This stuff originated in Dawson City and was dragged onto this property in the spring of 1937. I think they encountered soft snow and thaw and couldn't get past here and just dumped it and never tried to get it the last mile to the mill area. I first landed on this pile in 1978, my first year working as a geologist in Alaska, and got a very nice brass plate off the boiler, which is on the wall in my outhouse. The heavy copper under my woodstover here in the house came from the mill on this property. I'm sure this compressor, or whatever it's properly called, and the planer could be restored to working condition with minimal effort. This stuff is only 100mi out of Fairbanks.

The drive wheel for the hydro house at the mine isn't a typical cast Pelton wheel. It's a series of steel blades on a spindle inside a steel drum. The 'wheel' unit inside the drum isn't that large. There are real Pelton wheels outside, one the largest I've ever seen, that predate the unit inside. See pic added to the original post. The governor is an interesting unit for sure.

[edgarspencer]

I can clearly see the Ames name on the boiler, but that engine is also an Ames, much older than the boiler. Not unlike one I have. What happened to the crank and flywheels?
That Planer is a gem. Looks like a 4 side.Or maybe it's a lath mill (also known as a stave mill) I wonder if my son could con one of his helo buddies in Kodiak to pick it up.
That looks like great Ptarmigan country.

[Richard Flanders]

The engine is all there, flywheel and all. And it's all in good shape if I remember right. The planer has edger blades, seen in the last pic, so it makes lumber in one pass. It's all there too as far as I can tell. Looks like it makes two pieces at once if you want and is adjustable for width. Very nice planer. There's a bunch of spare teeth in a box. Here's a few additional pics. The main steel flywheel is back by Sterling in the brush. The smaller wooden wheel hub is sticking up in the air. Have your buddies park a Huey in my yard and leave the keys in it and I'll fill a good acre or two with stuff like this....

[Autumn Daze]

Oswego,NY! I fish for salmon and steelhead in Oswego. Right on the southern shore of Lake Ontario and one hell of a fishing town. Small world that that boiler made it all the way to AK.

[Richard Flanders]

And it's never had a fire in it from the looks of the inside. I would have thought it would have been used in Dawson but I guess not. It had to come down he Yukon, up the Tanana to the Delta area and been freighted over 60mi overland. I doubt you wanted tell any of the old guys who did this kind of thing back then that something "couldn't be done"...

[edgarspencer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yavari_%28ship%29

Men can do the 'almost impossible' with the means available and enough men and mules.
Lake Titicaca (I still giggle when saying that) is over 2 miles above sea level in Peru. The ship restoration, described in the above link has been an ongoing project for several years. It's original steam plant was removed and replaced with an oil engine. She's up and running now and is one of the nicest examples of 'antique iron' restoration in South America.
That boiler you show is a scotch marine type, return flue. The furnace section appears to have been chopped out from the jagged edges in the photo. The doors, with the builders name above, is actually the back of the boiler.
Richard, I didn't see that last picture (of the turbine) in the group of the hydro plant. That's a Francis type wheel. Interesting as it's a fabricated case instead of a cast iron housing. S Morgan Smith turbines, a company acquired by Allis Chalmers in York, PA built hundreds of Francis turbines. Many are either still in continuous use, or put back into service. The original Collins Axe factory, in Collinsville CT has several and one is operational, except that the state DPUC won't give them a permit to operate, or at least to operate and generate power.

[Richard Flanders]

I'm at an obvious disadvantage and obviously have no clue of the difference between a Pelton wheel and others or that there are even others. If I remember correctly, which I may not be, that large fabricated housing has a cast wheel with cups inside that is the same as I've seen in cast housings elsewhere. I've always just called the all Pelton wheels. The drum behind the governor in the top picture has a different type of wheel inside. Very simple set of horizonal steel blades mounted on an axle.

I just looked up a Francis on Wiki: looks like that is what is in that large housing. Can't remember seeing that type when I looked inside but it's been a couple of years. That was originally driven by the wooden flume before it was switched to the inside unit. I'll dig up pics of the powerhouse turbine drum and inside wheel. I have some. The pic of the inside is looking through the turbine wheel assembly and up the flume and doesn't show the wheel well. I think that the blades may have been removed? Can't remember. Here we go: found a pic of the inside of the Francis turbine that my assistant took this past summer.

Re the boiler: I'm not seeing the jagged edges. Not sure what you consider the furnace section but the square opening in the top picture is where the wood/coal fuel went in and was burned. That chamber has a heavy grate in the bottom. For some reason it's stuffed full of short pieces of heavy railroad rail, perhaps intended as spare furnace section grating? It's much heavier than anything that would normally be used at a mine.