[DKR RHS 8]

I was there last week, the doxford is a test engine and can be seen through viewing area where a video plays interview with ex doxford design engineer and some workers, one guy quite comically talked of travelling around the world with a big file repairing crankshafts

Hi Yes i believe it is the test bed "DOXFORD SEAHORSE" engine. I was at South Shields Tech and we had the single cylinder test engine in the Doxford shop. My friend and i went looking for the South Shields Doxford, the Lecturers in the tech did not know of it, said they had a simulator now! We did think the Beamish Museum had the engine but when we looked at in the back of the shed it clearly had more than one cylinder and appeared to have the Seahorse logo on the crankcase doors. I sailed with LB's bot the side crank lever scavenge type and also one with scavenge pump on the main crank. When is first saw one working in anger on watch i nearly turned round at the ER door and walk back out. I think the Senior Engineer pushed me back into engine room! Perhaps i should have kept walking. I also sailed with the H&W opposed piston engine and this proved a far more reliable beast. Rgds DKR

 

[G0SLP]

The old engine is now at the Anson Engine Museum
http://www.enginemuseum.org/doxford.html

More info here
https://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/famous-engine-s-story-captured-on-camera-1-1288910

I well remember the old beastie, including starting it up at the end of my cadetship, back in 1982. Ah, the Doxford Shop. Memories...

 

[dannic]

There is some kind of a childish spate between Tyne and Wear Museums and Beamish about funding that has apparently meant people can't go into see it. it is in the Regional Museums Store where large exhibits are kept, the large sheds you referred to, adjacent to the model engineering shed. There is a really backward mindset in Museums hierarchy, where the public interest is the sacrificed on the altar of their own self interest. Take the working model of the Doxford 760J9 engine. It was built in Doxfords Engine works, by the tool room staff there. It is of a Sunderland designed and built engine, by a Sunderland Company whose origins can allegedly be traced back to the Knights of Willliam the conqueror who settled at Doxfordham in Northumberland. The model was in Sunderland Museum and loaned to what is now the Discovery Museum, then part of Tyne and Wear museums. When the museums were reorganized, the model mysteriously became the property of the discovery museum and will remain there. It belongs to and in Sunderland and is part of our local history and it should be back where it belongs. As for the 3 cylinder engine, I think it can be viewed by arrangement with the Doxford Engine Friends Association (DEFA). I will find out and post the details here when I do.

And where is the single cylinder prototype that was given to south shields marine college? spent a year fabricating and installing cooling systems, purifiers etc. so as to get the chance to start her up....
Dannic

 

[Ron Stringer]

And where is the single cylinder prototype that was given to south shields marine college? spent a year fabricating and installing cooling systems, purifiers etc. so as to get the chance to start her up....
Dannic

See post #62 above

 

[760J9]

Remains of the south shields doxford

The "South Shields Doxford" had been the single cylinder prototype built by Doxfords but at Palmers Hill, formerly Dickensons steam engine works, at the west end of J.L.Thompsons yard, a couple of miles down river from Doxfords. It was then sent to South Shields Marine and Technical College. After dismantling there it was taken to the Anson museum, referred to in the posts prior to this one. It is lying about waiting for the resources (money mainly), to be rebuilt. I will post some pictures of the very last day it ran at South Shields, an event arranged by the Doxford Engine FRIENDS Association (DEFA).
One of the men largely responsible for research and development of that engine, under Percy Jackson (The engines name "P" being the initial of his christian name and the following design, the "J" type being the initial of his surname), J.W.Jordan has just published a book "Notable Points in the design history of the Doxford Opposed Piston Marine Oil Engine," available from DEFA.

 

[Duncan112]

If you look in my photographs there are some of the prototype Doxford at the Ansom Museum (about 6 years ago!!)

 

[henry1]

I was on the B&W engine course about 14 years ago and had a visit to the B&W museum, I was talking to the senior tutor and he mentioned that B&W made an opposed piston engine but infringed Doxfords patents so could not build any more. there was a model of one engine in the museum, he said the B&W version was a good engine but I never heard of anyone who sailed on one

 

[dannic]

I was on the B&W engine course about 14 years ago and had a visit to the B&W museum, I was talking to the senior tutor and he mentioned that B&W made an opposed piston engine but infringed Doxfords patents so could not build any more. there was a model of one engine in the museum, he said the B&W version was a good engine but I never heard of anyone who sailed on one

Harland and Wolf made opposed piston B&W engines under licence - difference was the top piston was not considered to generate power to the crankshaft (on eccentrics rather than cranks) where Doxford stated top piston contributed to power output. So top piston was exhaust piston.
Dannic.

 

[alaric]

Harland and Wolf made opposed piston B&W engines under licence - difference was the top piston was not considered to generate power to the crankshaft (on eccentrics rather than cranks) where Doxford stated top piston contributed to power output. So top piston was exhaust piston.
Dannic.

This was all nonsense to avoid patent infringement. Just look at the size of the tie rods. In reality a 750 bore exhaust piston certainly produced a lot of power, approx. 25% of the total when the stroke was 500 with the main piston stroke being 1500mm.
I sailed deep sea with H&W-B&W opposed piston main engines in Alaric and Megantic. Good, largely trouble free engines that were very heavily built compared to Doxfords.
I have no direct experience with the earlier double acting versions of the H&W-B&W design, very powerful in their time. but how Mr Pounder et~al ever thought having 3 pistons per cylinder was a good idea to inflict on ship's Engineers beggars belief.

 

[Russ Lowdon]

History of the Doxford

there's a new book out on the design history of the Doxford opposed piston marine oil engine by John.W Jordan and the Late John.R Cartridge both Chartered Marine Engineers, who had been apprentices, designers and test engineers at Wm Doxfords Ltd. from 1910 until 1985. both member of the Doxford engine friends association.
copies via the Secetary at DEFA

 

[dannic]

This was all nonsense to avoid patent infringement. Just look at the size of the tie rods. In reality a 750 bore exhaust piston certainly produced a lot of power, approx. 25% of the total when the stroke was 500 with the main piston stroke being 1500mm.


The exhaust pistons being on eccentrics rather than cranks mean they cannot put power into the crankshaft - mechanical efficiency means they can only be driven, cannot drive!!
And yes it was to do with copyright etc. i believe.
Dannic

 

[alaric]

Really Dannic? Would you care to elaborate?

 

[dannic]

Really Dannic? Would you care to elaborate?

Mechanical advantage! A crank can put power in and out but by design an eccentric can only be powered. So top piston of huffleywuffleys could only be considered an exhaust piston and not power producing item. It was a way around copyrights or patents as the big exhaust piston improved efficiency but at the expense of complication. Real pain doing crankcase work!!
Dannic.

 

[Foca]

Boniface and Bernard......Booth Line

I sailed on the Boniface in the 60's and as 2nd Mate, I remember going down the Engine room to help when the Engineers were taking lead readings..that hammer was very heavy. I also brought the "Berwell Adventure"(Bernard) back to the UK as Master when she had been inpounded in Gulfport

 

[alaric]

Mechanical advantage! A crank can put power in and out but by design an eccentric can only be powered. So top piston of huffleywuffleys could only be considered an exhaust piston and not power producing item. It was a way around copyrights or patents as the big exhaust piston improved efficiency but at the expense of complication. Real pain doing crankcase work!!
Dannic.

The Patent Lawyers seem to have convinced you Dannic.
Try putting all this waffle aside and just think of an eccentric as a crank with a larger than normal pin. The mist will slowly clear. It will be blown away if you draw a diagram. Its the throw that matters.
And what is 'improved efficiency'?

 

[holmsey]

Doxford Model

Re post #58 ,

The last time I visited the City of Glasgow College, (it used to be the Nautical College), they have a working model of a Doxford in their Marine Engineering Department, I'm sure the model is the one that was in the Transport Museum.

 

[Chris Phillips]

Holmsey.
Liked your 'sticky' "Honest chief, it came away in my hand"
The last job I had before retiring was as a maintenance technician in a factory which had quite a large machine shop. When called to a machine which was refusing to do what it was supposed to do (usually stopped) The operator's favourite was "It was alright when I went for my break"

 

[vickentallen]

Thanks Holmsey,
I wondered where it had gone, my old man served his time with David Rowan in the 30s, so I have a tenuous affinity with the engine, so much stuff from the reorganisation seems to have gone AWOL.. Vic..

 

[holmsey]

Rowan's

Vickentallen,

My first job when I came ashore was as the maintenance manager for Scottish Machine Tools Ltd, who were based in Rowan's old engine shop in Elliot Street Glasgow, I always had visions of the engines being built there.
Jim H

 

[Joe Freeman]

Hi Holmsey and Vick, across the street from the Scottish Machine Tool Company or what was known as the West works, there was another old diesel shop where diesel engines were erected and tested. When I was there in the mid 60's all that remained there were a couple of horizontal lathes and a machine for boring Doxford liners and milling out the exhaust and scavenge ports. There was a story and I don't know how true about a bronze propeller that was stored there in a big corrugated tin shed. When the shed was removed all that was left of the propeller was the core and lots of bronze dust.
Joe
(Cloud)