Antique Marine Engine Show

Mystic Seaport, Mystic Connecticut

16 and 17 August 2008

While I had attended the Antique Marine Engine Show before I had not displayed until this year and I am very happy that I decided to do so. I had a wonderful time! The boys, Roy Bear and Eddie Moose were with me and they had a fine time also. We talked (OK, I talked, in fact, I talked to so many folks I was starting to feel like Norm Jones!) to dozens, maybe hundreds of visitors and had a great time promoting NEMES. I hope that many people will accept my invitation to visit our meetings and our annual show in February.

There were a number of NEMES members in attendance, Rich Hubbard, Russ Steeves, Dave Bono, Dave Piper and best of all Ray HasBrouck. One of Ray's engines was featured on the poster that promoted this years show and his engines were featured at the show. I am certain that there were more members there so if I have not mentioned your name here please let me know and I will add it to the roster.

I will probably foul up some of the captions so please forgive me. I know essentially nothing about marine engines so if there are errors don't hesitate to let me know. errol.groff@snet.net

A note about the video clips: Because they are very large files I suggest retrieving the MPG clips like this, right click on the camera icon, then left click on "Save target as", tell your computer where you want the file to be saved then resume browsing. After the file is saved look at it then delete if desired. The WMV files should work fine just by clicking on the icon.

MPG 12.3M WMV1M NEMES member Dave Piper. Dave was showing off his scratch built double expansion steam engine. He even made the patters for the head casting. Dave has promised to send along some photos of the patterns and I will add them when I receive them.

Thanks Dave for the photos of the patterns for your engine. Very much appreciated!

The story of the patterns.

I made the drawings of the patterns and brought them to Nashua Foundry for a consult. The person I spoke to was Pete Lyons. This was a while ago, I hope he is still there. He made some constructive criticisms of what I had drawn and the design was finalized.

I then commenced to making the loose patterns. No board or runners ect. Once complete ( About 200 hours of work.....3rd try was the charm) I brought the loose patterns to Pete. He approved. He then gave me one molding board and on this board he traced the location for each pattern.

My job was to then go home, assemble two more molding boards and mount the patterns to the boards in the location noted by his tracing. ( +/- about 1/2") This strategic location was to allow for the runners/gated to be mounted. Nashua did that work for me.

He then stated the I should show up on such and such a date at such and such a time and I could watch them pour the iron. Woooohoooo! That was fun as I had never seen iron poured on my parts before. They came out great!

I have one set of castings left. Maybe as spare if I have a problem.

MPG 40M WMV 4M Dave Pipers engine and a very neat Hero's engine

Ray's double sized steamer

MPG 19M WMV 2M

Very interesting steam steering rig from a big ship

MPG 49M WMV 4M

Didn't catch this young fellows name but he was actively participating in running the steering engine.

MPG 28.5M WMV 2.4M Beautiful red launch engine

MPG 27M WMV 2M Ray HasBrouck engines on the air table with other engines also

MPG 22M WMV 2 Two engines displayed by an older gentleman and his daughter

MPG 70M WMV 6M Model engines on the air table

MPG 20M WMV 2M Model engines on the air table

Dave Bono and one of his students

So it wasn't all old engines. This woman asked me about the camera that I used and I took her photo so she could see how well the camera works. I think that the subject matter has a lot to do with the photo results.

There is collectors group for everything under the sun

The boys were set up in their chairs where they could keep an eye on things

Russ Steeves beautiful steamer

Melina is Rich Hubbard's recently completed launch. It features a Ray HasBrouck designed #8 engine.

MPG 68M WMV 5M Running the #8 HasBrouck engine

MPG 17M WMV 1.4M

Now THAT is a bandsaw!

View of the Charles W. Morgan the only surviving whaling ship in the world.

MPG 47M WMV 4M

The cooking pots were used render the oil from the flesh of captured whales. To add insult to injury for the whales when the blubbber was fully cooked down what was left was then burned to render the next whale.