[SEL] RE: One Flywheel or Two?

[Michael Young]

Hi ,

here in Australia we were blessed with more than our fair share of Hornsbys
sent over from the old dart back in the early days of the last century - or
was that the one before .  They lie about rusting away in the paddocks, no
body bothering to pick them up, so common they is over here.  Of the 8,000
or so Hornsbys that came  to Australia in those days I doubt that more than
a few hundred had two flywheels.  The ones I have seen or seen pictures of
were real big ones, say 16Hp or bigger.  Believe me a 16Hp Akroyd is BIG.
This includes the earliest girder frame types, the half base Akroyds, the
1905 and 1912 style oil engines, the petrol and the Andrews styled gas
engines - they all were typified by a relatively large (for their HP) single
flywheel.

Michael Young
Orange, NSW, 2800
Phone:  02 6361 0041
Mobile: 0414 015 864
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Listerdiesel" <listerdiesel at gmail.com>
To: "The SEL email discussion list" <sel at lists.stationary-engine.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: [SEL] RE: One Flywheel or Two?


> On 5/3/05, Rob Skinner <rskinner at rustyiron.com> wrote:
> >
> > > My last exhibit your honour, is a genuine original 1905 Richard
> > > Hornsby sales leaflet for the Hornsby Oil Engine, showing twin
> > > flywheels, on two sizes of engines.
> >
> > Hi Peter,
> > Despite most of the surviving engines having one flywheel, the catalogs
verify
> > that the engines originally left the factory with two flywheels.  This
is not as
> > strange as you might think.
> >
> > During the war there were severe shortages of raw materials.  Scrap
drives
> > consumed many old, worn out engines.  But the Hornsby engines were of
such good
> > design that they were still running strong and powering industry during
the war.
> > It would have been foolhardy to scrap the engines that were running the
shops
> > and factories!  However, it was soon discovered that the engines were so
well
> > designed that they would perform just fine with a single flywheel.  The
> > superfluous flywheels were then removed and melted down into munitions.
> >
> > The only two-flywheel engines that you'll see today are those that were
owned by
> > Nazi sympathizers.
> >
> > Now you know the WHOLE story
> > ;-)
>
> Notwithstanding your 'colourful' explanation, I should point out that
> the catalogue also shows single-flywheel versions of many of the
> engines, which tends to blow your theory out of the water
> somewhat...:-))
>
> The smaller engines tend to have had single flywheels and the larger
> ones twins, but even then there are exceptions to the rule, so it is a
> bit of a mixed bag.
>
> The catalogues and information that I have is Ray Hooley's property,
> and will go onto his webpages as soon as I get a minute.
>
> Peter
> -- 
> Peter A Forbes
> Email: listerdiesel at gmail.com
> Web: www.oldengine.org/members/diesel
>
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