1880's Floating Steam Donkey Pile Driver by Keith Black - 1:120 Scale

[mbp521]

Amazing work Keith!
 

3am on those tiny bits! Wow, my eyes wouldn’t be able to focus on my bench at that time of the morning, let alone the small parts. And I just got new eyes last year and still in my 50’s. 🤣 My hats off to you sir! I am a lightweight. 

 

-Brian

[KeithAug]

5 hours ago, mbp521 said:

And I just got new eyes last year and still in my 50’s.

Babies need lots of sleep Brian.🙂

[clearway]

it will be a pity to hide all that detail with a shed Keith!

 

Keith

[Keith Black]

 Thank you everybody for the likes and for following along. 

 

23 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Your wonky donkey is looking just the job. I fear it may starve without teeth. I recommend a set of dentures and a cart load of carrots. 

Working to 3am isn't conducive to maintaining your youthful good looks. I admire your stamina but you need your beauty sleep.😀

  Keith, as much as I like ya, I don't trust your ability to come up with a plan to increase my modeling years. Besides, I've a long nap just up ahead. 

 

20 hours ago, tmj said:

I thought I was abusing myself by staying up until 1:30am wanting to get a bit of trunnelling out of the way on my Philadelphia. You've got me beat by 1.5 hours. That makes me a 'lightweight'! *sigh*

  Tom, I normally get into my chair for the night between 11pm and 1am so stretching it out a couple of hours isn't a biggie though I will say, I slept most of yesterday. And no, Keith, it did not improve my looks any whatsoever! 

 

 

18 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

You guys are definitely  rookies  . Beauty sleep, lol, I got to be the uglyest ship builder, I have done an all nighter or two. More than once the First Mate has yelled down to the ship yard" Good God Bob it's morning 

🌄  😆. 

And @KeithAug, you must be thinking of my donkey it runs on carrots,  his run on wood.lol

 I feed the Donkey the onions. Let's see how many of you good folk get that reference. 

 

4 hours ago, mbp521 said:

Amazing work Keith!
 

3am on those tiny bits! Wow, my eyes wouldn’t be able to focus on my bench at that time of the morning, let alone the small parts. And I just got new eyes last year and still in my 50’s. 🤣 My hats off to you sir! I am a lightweight. 

 Thank you, Brian. God has truly blessed me with the health and eyesight that I have at age 77. 

 

 

 First, I want apologize for the quality of the following photos. I think there's too much light coming in from the window which is counterintuitive? That or the camera, like all of us, has it's good days and bad days.

 

 I made the flywheel this morning, got it installed and painted and with that, the Donkey engine is done with the exception of loading the drum with line and installing the Donkeyman. I finally found his position from which to operate the engine and it's perfect! His left hand is on the control lever and he's gesturing caution with his right hand. Once he's painted he'll get attached and I can then permanently fix the engine to the barge deck. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I've mentioned a long term project I have in mind that includes this pile driver and the future help boat/tug, Lula. Provided the Lord allows me the time, I want to build a dock diorama based on the Brooklyn Navy Yard location that consist of a finished dock with a wooden dock crane, warehouse fronts, and maybe a skid driver doing repair work. Another part of the diorama would be a new dock under construction that features this driver and the future help boat.

 

 Those early dock cranes fascinate the heck out me and I would  love the opportunity to build one. The whole diorama project is something I hope I'm able to accomplish and would be a fitting project to end on.  

 

 Launching of the USS Maine at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1889. This dock crane is very similar to the dock crane pictured next to the USS Tennessee in 1869. 

a

 

 

 

 Thank you to each of you for stopping by and being part of this journey.

 

  Keith 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

 I feed the Donkey the onions. Let's see how many of you good folk get that reference. 

Nope.  You got me on that one, Keith.

[KeithAug]

Love the dockyard crane Keith, what an amazing contraption.

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

Nope.  You got me on that one, Keith.

 YouTube star, Derek Bieri. One of his favorite expressions is "feed her the onions", meaning, give it the gas.  Funny guy and worth watching, IMHO.

 

 By the by, don't feed your donkey onions. 

 

 

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

Love the dockyard crane Keith, what an amazing contraption.

 Talk about not understanding why something doesn't turtle. The base rotated, the boom didn't have a counterbalance, it was stayed to the rotating base. How in the world was it pegged to Mother Earth that kept it upright when the boom was loaded? 

 

 Unfortunately, I find very little information via Mr Google. I'm sure if I build one it'll become perfectly clear.

[tmj]

6 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

How in the world was it pegged to Mother Earth that kept it upright when the boom was loaded?

"The truth is out there, somewhere!"

                                            ... The X-Files

Edited Monday at 09:25 PM by tmj

[Keith Black]

 Thank you to everyone for joining in and the likes. 

 

8 hours ago, clearway said:

it will be a pity to hide all that detail with a shed Keith!

 Thank you, Keith. The shed's rear and front doors will be open and there will be two windows on each side. I think there'll be enough light to be able to look inside the shed and see that there's a Donkey engine in there. I'm happy with some parts of the engine and not so happy with others. for sure, it can't be mistaken for anything else but a Steam Donkey. 

 

5 hours ago, tmj said:

"The truth is out there, somewhere!"

                                            ... The X-Files

 What a great series. 

 

 

 No more daytime photo shoots, stupid camera. 

 

The Donkeyman is painted and attached. I wish it was logically possible to have painted him a color where he stood out more but the environment he would have worked in dictated the dark clothes colors. 

 

 

View of the flywheel. I'm very disappointed the way the flywheel turned out. Maybe I'll throw a shop rag over it. 

 

 

 Thank you to everyone for your support, I am truly humbled. 

 

   Keith

[Knocklouder]

Looking good my friend,  why not paint the Donkeyman with dark blue overalls,  and say he just starting his shift and has not gotten dirty yet.  That's what he looks like at the end of his shift.

 The fly wheel looks realistic to me, and I've seen a few..

Bob  M. 

[PvG Aussie]

Keith, I think the flywheel looks perfectly good. Given the scale, I can't see any problems. 👍👏

Cheers, Peter

[Canute]

Looking good Keith. I'm with Bob M. and the blue overalls. It's early in his shift.

 

For Brooklyn Navy Yard photos, this site gets some in passing, so to speak. He has compiled a lot of data for all the railroad maritime facilities on the New York State side of the harbor. The navy Yard was west of the Wallabout terminals, so some shots were taken from the yard into those piers. http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/wu.html

 

Here's the main page for the website: http://www.trainweb.org/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html

 

This can be a very deep and complex rabbit hole. Enjoy.😄

[Keith Black]

 Thank you to all for the likes.

 

 

9 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

Looking good my friend,  why not paint the Donkeyman with dark blue overalls,  and say he just starting his shift and has not gotten dirty yet.  That's what he looks like at the end of his shift.

 The fly wheel looks realistic to me, and I've seen a few.

 Thank you, Bob. I gave the Donkeyman jeans as they were invented in 1873 but bib overalls came on the scene much later.

 

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overalls

 

8 hours ago, PvG Aussie said:

Keith, I think the flywheel looks perfectly good. Given the scale, I can't see any problems. 👍👏

Cheers, Peter

 Thank you, Peter. I wanted to make the flywheel with a built up outer edge but my hole chisels failed at the end of the making as they were tearing the card instead of punching through cleanly. 

 

 

15 minutes ago, Canute said:

Looking good Keith. I'm with Bob M. and the blue overalls. It's early in his shift.

 

For Brooklyn Navy Yard photos, this site gets some in passing, so to speak. He has compiled a lot of data for all the railroad maritime facilities on the New York State side of the harbor. The navy Yard was west of the Wallabout terminals, so some shots were taken from the yard into those piers. http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/wu.html

 

Here's the main page for the website: http://www.trainweb.org/bedt/IndustrialLocos.html

 

This can be a very deep and complex rabbit hole. Enjoy.😄

 Thank you, Ken. The links will be invaluable, thank you. Like Alice I expect this to be an amazing journey. 

 

 

 Okay, now that I've got a Steam Donkey built, can we please talk feed water? I've a couple of questions that I don't have answers to so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

 1) Would the water available at the Brooklyn Navy Yards have been fit to be used to feed the boiler?

 2) Would a hand pump have been sufficient to feed the boiler or would a tank have been necessary? 

 3) I'm assuming that if a hand pump was sufficient to feed the boiler that it would have been placed inside the engine shed to keep from freezing up on

     cold nights. is that a safe assumption?

 

 

 Thank you everyone for being part of the journey.

 

    Keith

 

[mbp521]

11 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I'm very disappointed the way the flywheel turned out. Maybe I'll throw a shop rag over it.

 

Keith, I’m with Peter on this one. I don’t see anything wrong with the flywheel. 
 

-Brian

[FriedClams]

On 8/23/2024 at 1:37 PM, Keith Black said:

I felt good about the build, the ideas were flowing fast and I could clearly envision the necessary steps needed to make it all work. It was a fun day at the worktable.

 

Wonderful, and isn't it for times like these that we endure the tedious monotony of other tasks in modeling?

 

Love this work you're doing and your vision for the project in total. 

 

11 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I'm very disappointed the way the flywheel turned out. Maybe I'll throw a shop rag over it.

 

I think you're being too critical of yourself - if this was in 1:24, you might be justified.

 

Looking great, Keith!

 

Gary 

[Canute]

Keith, the feedwater from the NYC mains would be good for making steam. Harbor water would be brackish and unusable. Maybe OK for cooling, but steam water needs to be pretty clean. I know out west , railroads had to treat their water if it was too alkaline.

 

Depending on how fast the cylinder used the steam, that would be used to calculate if they needed a pump and what size it should be. All the feedwater heater does is warm up the boiler water before it goes into the boiler. They do that to increase the thermal efficiency of the engine.

 

It should all be inside the shed to prevent freezing the water pipes, else they'd have to be drained, in winter. And New York Harbor was one cold spot with the northerly winds blowing down the Hudson. I grew up in that area and spent 4 years in an engineering school in Hoboken, across the Hudson from Manhattan.

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, mbp521 said:

Keith, I’m with Peter on this one. I don’t see anything wrong with the flywheel.

 Thank you, Brian. 

 

1 hour ago, FriedClams said:

Wonderful, and isn't it for times like these that we endure the tedious monotony of other tasks in modeling?

 

Love this work you're doing and your vision for the project in total. 

 Thank you, Gary. Golden times those moments when the work flows like that. Not like the current moment as I'm trying to spool the drum and it isn't going like I had it pictured in my head. 

 

1 hour ago, FriedClams said:

I think you're being too critical of yourself - if this was in 1:24, you might be justified.

 Thank you again.

 

50 minutes ago, Canute said:

Keith, the feedwater from the NYC mains would be good for making steam. Harbor water would be brackish and unusable. Maybe OK for cooling, but steam water needs to be pretty clean. I know out west , railroads had to treat their water if it was too alkaline.

 

Depending on how fast the cylinder used the steam, that would be used to calculate if they needed a pump and what size it should be. All the feedwater heater does is warm up the boiler water before it goes into the boiler. They do that to increase the thermal efficiency of the engine.

 

It should all be inside the shed to prevent freezing the water pipes, else they'd have to be drained, in winter. And New York Harbor was one cold spot with the northerly winds blowing down the Hudson. I grew up in that area and spent 4 years in an engineering school in Hoboken, across the Hudson from Manhattan.

 Thank you for the response, Ken. The Brooklyn Navy Yard sits at the mouth of the East River, that's why I thought the harbor water might have been useable as feed water, guess not. So the question is, do I need to build a water tank for the Donkey and if so any guesses on size and shape? I can't find diddly on water usage rates for a single cylinder Steam Donkey. It couldn't have been too great as loggers drug these things out into the middle of nowhere. Contrary to popular belief there's not a babbling brook every hundred yards in the middle of the forest. Having first hand experience it could be a hike to get to a stream or river and you sure wouldn't be hauling at the most more than ten gallons at a time.

 

 Water usage is a bit perplexing for me. I don't wanna just throw a Donkey in a shed and not address the obvious water needs. If someone tells me "Keith, you'd need a square, rectangular, or triangular fifty gallon tank at least painted purple", I'm off to the races.     

Edited Tuesday at 03:52 PM by Keith Black

[KeithAug]

12 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I'm very disappointed the way the flywheel turned out.

Keith - you need to consult a critic who is more like the right scale. Does Ole Bob have a view?

[Canute]

The logging donkeys used water from the surrounding streams, acquired thru a suction pipe, run thru an engine based pump. The suction pipe had a screened intake that got dunked into the stream for the water, Logging locos hauled their feed tank(the tender) with them. There probably was a feed tank on the scow for startup water. (For those of us who live in rural areas, the fire companies still do the suctioning of water from selected ponds. They also maintain a tanker or two. Not everybody lives within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant.) Since the pile driver was working on pier pilings, I'd expect they'd either have a hose from a handy hydrant or some kind of water hoy to keep the clean wet stuff available. This last is pure conjecture on my part. The time frame for the railroad I model is the mid 1950s and they didn't have water barges in that period. City water in Hoboken/Jersey City was enough.

 

The Lackawanna Railroad pile drivers had sheds for their mechanisms that were painted a light tan with dark brown trim. That was their Rail Marine department colors, since the passenger ferries were done up in those same colors.

[wefalck]

I think a water barrel or tank would have been there. The water in the boiler gets consumed quite quickly and one needs to keep a certain level in order to not burn out the flue-pipes. Otherwise, I would think that the operators of these pile-drivers would have had either a barge for coal and water at hand or would have carted the supplies to the drivers (as did the operators of steam-rollers and traction engines). The buffer barrel/tank could be filled by hand-pump, while the coal could be carried on board in sacks (on the back of hired men) or in wheel-barrows. In those dark ages before HSE, a simple plank would have been sufficient to be laid to the land.

[Cathead]

Loving this discussion, and to chime in on the donkey/onions question, I thought it was a Shrek reference! (Onions have layers, donkeys have layers...)

[Keith Black]

 Thank you for the comments and likes.  

 

 I'm going to build a 4x4x6 water tank with a hand pump between the tank and boiler. That size tank is just over 700 gallons. Lula, the help boat/tug, will deliver water in the AM when she brings the pile driving crew to the barge. If 700 gallons isn't enough water for the day she'll make a midday delivery along with piling logs and fire wood if necessary. Most Donkey engines were wood fired till the 1920's. 

 

 That's the way it's going to work in my world unless someone has a better plan.

 

   Thank you to everyone for your support.

 

    Keith

[Retired guy]

Brilliant project Keith, looking at your pictures with the scale size guy on the donkey, they were huge machines.

 

Regards

Richard 

[Canute]

The steam donkey engines in our train layout logging area had water tanks. The small ones had a tank of maybe several hundred gallons, the big engine had a proportionally larger tank. Yes, you need water close at hand to preclude burning the lines up.

[Keith Black]

 A huge thank you to everyone for the likes and for following along.

 

 

On 8/27/2024 at 11:40 PM, Retired guy said:

Brilliant project Keith, looking at your pictures with the scale size guy on the donkey, they were huge machines.

 Thank you, Richard. The later improved duel cylinder, duel drum Donkey engines dwarfed this early version.

 

 

15 hours ago, Canute said:

The steam donkey engines in our train layout logging area had water tanks. The small ones had a tank of maybe several hundred gallons, the big engine had a proportionally larger tank. Yes, you need water close at hand to preclude burning the lines up.

 Thank you, Ken. Yes, there'll be an elevated oval water tank on a stand that will gravity feed the boiler.  

 

 Something like this measuring 8x4x6 feet would hold 1,436 gallons weighing (including tank weight) a little over 12,000 Lb's. In all likelihood this will be somewhat modified in the making. 

 

 

 

 A milestone day.

 

 We started this little project on July 11th with an idea and 49 days later as of today, the Donkey engine was permanently attached to the barge and the drum lines run over the sheave wheels. 

 

 The engine shed is filled with the engine, there's no way a water tank would fit and little else for that matter. The water tank will go at the back of the shed attached to the shed wall. 

 

 

 

 

 

The friction drum line cleated at the base of the tower needs a coiled line. I'm not sure at this time how I'll handle the line on the friction drum head but it won't as it is currently pictured.

 

 The shed base is not attached and as soon as I've satisfied myself that all is well I'll remove it by cutting the shed base where the front doors are located and slip it around the Donkey engine lines.

 

 Next up, we start the shed.

 

 Everyone's support for this project has been incredible, thank you.

 

   Keith

[KeithAug]

Keith - A good looking fully rigged raft. A new category of MSW vessel.

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Keith - A good looking fully rigged raft. A new category of MSW vessel.

 Unfortunately I can't hit the laugh emoji and thank you emoji at the same time. 

[BANYAN]

Looks good Keith.  I am surprised they were not using SWR for the pile driver by this time?  Not saying it should be at all, just interesting that it does not seem that they were.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[FriedClams]

Nice progress, Keith.  Placing the water tank behind the shed makes sense as its weight would help counterbalance that of the driver.

 

Looking very good!

 

Gary