Western River Steamboat Heroine by ggrieco - Scale 1:24 - 1838 as she appeared before hitting a snag in the Red River. - Finished

[Dimitris71]

Your metal work is outstanding Glenn.

 

Cheers

Dimitris

[dgbot]

Glenn you have given inspiration to everyone who want to do machining and metalwork.

David B 

[captainbob]

I agree with the others the engine is looking great, but I have a question about this type of engine I have not yet been able to answer.  The wipers operate opposite each other, that is to say the right front and the left back lift at the same time, and the left front and the right back lift at the same time. Since they are operated from a single lever, I have never been able to figure out the mechanism that causes this reversal of lifting.  Can you explain it? 

 

Bob

[ggrieco]

Thanks everybody,

 

Your kind words have made my Thanksgiving!

 

Hello Bob,  great question!  I have been going over so many drawings trying to decipher the engineering and how it applies to our early engine but, I still have many questions.  Most of the examples I see are decades later than Heroine's and a little more advanced.  Also, they are usually paired engines and we have the single centerline engine.  On most engines there are two rocker shafts.  The two wipers are attached so that they can move independantly on one shaft and the second shaft is linked directly to the exhaust wiper.  Typically, there are two cams, a cut off cam and a full stroke cam.  The valve linkages are engineered in a way that the reach rod from the full stroke cam can be attached to both shafts controlling both wipers or attached just to the exhaust wiper while the reach rod from the cut off cam engages the steam wiper.  When the full stroke cam engages both shafts in does so in a way that they reciprocate equally in opposite directions.  When the cut off cam is engaged, the wipers opperate independantly allowing beter control of the introduction of steam into the cylinder.  

 

For Heroine, we only have a full stroke cam on the port side of the engine and we know that there was a second cam on the starboard side.  It is possible that the engine just used two full stroke cams operating both wipers but this would not have been a very efficient way to do it. (Although little about Heroine was efficient)  In the model,  I have built it this way but have left the wiper arrangement removeable in case I want to add the cut off cam arrangement.  So far, Heroine is the only example of a single centerline engine with flywheel  that I've seen and I think we still have a lot to discover about it.  I was hoping some steamboat enthusiast out there might have an idea that they could send along.

 

I hope my description was helpfull.  If I find any new info that affects Heroine's engine I'll be sure to post it.

 

Glenn

Edited November 26, 2015 by ggrieco

[albert]

Hi Glenn fantastic work.

Edited November 27, 2015 by albert

[Cathead]

Y'know, you might as well just finish blowing our minds and make the danged thing operational.

 

I'm a steamboat enthusiast but not much of an engineer, so won't be any help figuring out engine details. Happy to learn from you, though!

[captainbob]

Glenn, thank for the information.  Valve linkage on later engines became very complicated.  It is the early engines that fascinate me.  Like you, this is the only single centerline engine I've seen.  You're doing a great job.

 

Bob

[cog]

Glenn,

 

If you've got something like parchement or tracing paper, you could use it to filter the light as it will diffuse it which makes the glistening less awkward to photograph ...

[ggrieco]

Thanks Carl,

 

I'll give this a try. It sounds like it should get rid of the annoying bright patches on the brass.

 

Glenn

[Cathead]

Glenn,

 

I have a question which just occurred to me. In The Western River Steamboat, by Adam Kane, the author repeatedly refers to "the Red River wreck" saying that the boat's identity hadn't been confirmed (as of the 2004 publication date, anyway). It was an early boat, without hog chains. I just made the connection that this must be the Heroine you're reconstructing here? Unless there's another Red River wreck out there?

[kurtvd19]

Cathead, you guessed right.  Click on the link below to see Glenn's work.  Glen talked at the 2014 NRG Conference in St. Louis on this wreck and their work.

Kurt

 

  http://nautarch.tamu.edu/model/

[druxey]

The diorama of the wreck (url above) is another masterpiece!

[ggrieco]

Thanks Cathead,Kurt and druxey,

 

Cathead you are correct. If you get a chance, take a look at some of Dr. Kevin Crisman's articles on the Heroine, he has found an amazing amount of information on the vessel and its last voyage.

 

Glenn

[ggrieco]

I decided to take a break from the soldering this week and finish up the hull planking and cylinder timbers on the second hull.  Some of the machinery requires that some of the deck planking is in place and I'm hoping to be able to take care of that this next week.

 

The cylinder timbers notched for the frames and the wedges that position the top timber.

 

 

 

Cylinder timbers in place.

 

The mill continued to make bearings while I completed the hull.  From left to right are the Inboard flywheel shaft bearings, the outboard flywheel shaft bearings, and the outboard paddlewheel bearings.  I still need to complete the inboard paddlewheel bearings and the bronze sleeves for all the bearings.

 

Last week I mentioned the steam wiper arrangement and realized I didn't have it correct.  In order to utilize the full stroke/ cut-off cam arrangement that was common, both cams would have to be on the same side of the engine.  We know Heroine had two cams, one on either side of the flywheel.  Unfortunately, we have no other example of a riverboat engine with a centerline engine and flywheel.  This arrangement is more like a stationary engine that you would find in a factory.  It seems that this engine probably had a very simple valve assembly with just two full stroke cams.  The momemtum from the flywheel would have smoothed out the motion at the ends of the stroke.  Starting and reversing could have been accomplished just by lifting the proper levers by hand.  I could be wrong about this but it seems the most likely arrangement.  If anyone has ideas about this I would love to hear them.

 

Profile of engine and flywheel.

 

Engine half-way through a stroke. Port cam is fully forward opening forward exhaust valve, Starboard cam is fully aft opening aft steam valve.

[Cathead]

Yeah, that is a really unique setup. Wish I could offer more intelligent commentary. Really appreciate that 3D drawing.

[druxey]

Nice drawings! I suppose to prove the workability of this arrangement you could run the complete engine mechanism on compressed air.

[mtaylor]

This arrangement is more like a stationary engine that you would find in a factory. 

 

Glenn,

Is it possible that this engine is a stationary engine?  It would seem that in the early years, marine engines probably hadn't matured much in their own right. A good example is aircraft engines as the early aircraft were powered by automobile or stationary engines.

[druxey]

That idea had also crossed my mind, Mark.

[captainbob]

Two cams.  That explains how the poppets on one side were lifted opposite from the other.  I too believe this was a stationary engine adapted to drive the boat.

 

Bob

[ggrieco]

That is a possibility, these vessels evolved so quickly in the first couple of decades that designing a whole new power plant would be less likely that adapting what they already had.  Maybe these early flywheel engines were repurposed stationary engines and as the engines matured, they adopted more complex systems to control the valves, giving them more controllability to start, stop and reverse more efficiently and eliminating the need for the flywheels.

[mtaylor]

Glenn,

 

I'm curious, given the rather muddy nature of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, did they have a settling tank or some filtration system?  I would think that the muddy water wouldn't be good for the boilers.

[ggrieco]

Hello Mark,

 

Heroine's boilers probably had a large mud drum connected laterally under her boiler tubes. It would have caught much of the silt coming into the boilers but there would have still been a lot of build-up in the tubes. Periodically, the boilers would have to be shut down and cleaned out. We have found no evidence of a filtration system in the feed water line. Although just a few components of Heroine's feed water system were recovered, it was most likely a simple pump to a shroud around the steam exhaust that acted as a pre-heater. Then the water was pumped directly through a check valve and then the boilers. The silt was so bad that a filtration system would probably be overwhelmed. It appears that they were just relying on the volume on the boiler tubes getting them to the next cleaning.

[mtaylor]

Thanks Glenn.  I've wondered about that off and on over the years.  I used to live near St. Louis and the history of steamwheelers and the exploding boilers. This subtopic got me wondering again.

[Cathead]

Mark,

 

This image shows a "typical" (if there is such a thing) steamboat boiler, including the mud drum:

 

[Cathead]

Also, I've been skimming through a few of my references, which imply that steam engines were being adapted or designed specifically for western riverboat use pretty early on, certainly by the 1830s. So it's also possible that Heroine's engine, while based on a factory design, was also custom-built for her along similar lines. Certainly a number of early steamboat engines were salvaged from wrecks and put to use in basic land settings like sawmills.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Cathead,

 

We've been looking for evidence of the reuse of stationary engines on steamboats but I hadn't considered the idea that they have been reused in the opposite direction.  We know Heroine's engine was salvaged shortly after running onto the snag but I don't know where it eventually ended up.

[Cathead]

Here are some quotes which may shed some light on the question. All parantheticals mine; also any errors, as I transcribed these from the printed books. "The West", as used here, means the interior river basins of the United States, i.e. the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, and such, rather than the West of the Rockies and beyond.

 

 

From Steamboats on the Western Rivers, an Economic and Technological History, by Louis C. Hunter, p. 124-125:

 

The influence of (Oliver) Evans was felt early in the West. He supplied the engine for a steamboat on the lower Mississippi which was wrecked by a flood on the eve of its trial in 1803, but the engine was salvaged and was used in a sawmill successfully for some time...

 

More important was the establishment at Pittsburgh in 1811-1812 of the first steam-engine manufactory in the West by Evans...In 1814 Evans enumerated thirteen engines of his manufacture in operation throughout the West (none in steamboats)...

 

Evans had from an early date urged the advantages of the high-pressure engine for overcoming the swift currents and difficult rapids of the western rivers, but his energy and capital were evidently too largely absorbed in his many other enterprises for him to contribute much directly to the steamboat. Other men at or near Pittsburgh quickly entered the promising new field, building engines which incorporated in one manner or another essential features of the high-pressure engine which Evans believed were covered by his patent.

 

 

 

From The Western River Steamboat, by Adam L. Kane, p.68-71:

The few steamboats powered by low-pressure engines during this period (1820s) were largely of Eastern manufacture...

 

By the mid-1920s the trend was clear; high-pressure engines were rapidly displacing their low-pressure counterparts...

 

The universal adoption of high-pressure steam machinery in the West was rarely viewed in a favorable light by outside observers, though. Critics in both the eastern United States and England, where low-pressure steam engines were commonly employed, often called this technology dangerous and wasteful...

 

 

My understanding has always been that steamboat machinery was largely manufactured in situ in the west, as it was prohibitive to ship heavy machinery over the mountains from the east, or up the Mississippi from New Orleans (where there was no heavy metal industry to speak of at the time). Pittsburgh very early on developed iron working industry, and almost all western river boats were built along the upper Ohio River within easy reach of Pittsburgh's industrial capabilities. Thus it seems possible, even likely, to me that most steamboat engines, particularly any high-pressure ones, were built with steamboat use in mind, rather than being re-purposed industrial engines from some other source. The early ones may have been based on generic industrial designs for sawmills and such, but I'd bet Heroine's engine was built near her boatyard with her in mind.

Edited December 7, 2015 by Cathead

[ggrieco]

Thanks for the info Cathead, It does look like Pittsburgh did provide a lot to the industry as well as Cincinatti, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. We do know that a replacement paddle wheel for Heroine was cast in theJefferson foundry in Louisville, Kentucky. One of Heroine's shaft couplings was marked Schoenberger for Pennsylvanian foundry man Peter Schoenberger. I think you are correct that most of the iron work, if not all of it probably came from foundries along the Ohio River and were purpose built for the steamboat. I'm sure the simple engine was a design that was fairly common and easily adapted and possibly specifically built for Heroine or reused from an earlier steamboat. There is such a hodgepodge of different design element on all the parts that it appears that it was all thrown together from spare parts.

Edited December 8, 2015 by ggrieco

[Cathead]

Good point that it wasn't JUST Pittsburgh, I over-generalized there. But I think the broader point remains, that even early steamboat machinery was mostly being manufactured in the Ohio valley and thus was built/adapted specifically for the boats, even if using generic industrial designs as a template. I hope I'm not over-reaching here,  you're certainly more of an expert than I, and I don't mean to tell you your business. Just thought the readership would enjoy some more information on the subject, to chew on.

[ggrieco]

Whoops, you got back to me before I edited my post. I think you are correct. Your reasoning is very convincing.