[SEL] The Rice & Sargent Lives!

James Mackessy jmackess at twcny.rr.com
Mon Nov 27 20:33:14 PST 2006


Some of you will remember posts dating back into the late '90's of a corliss steam engine rescue from the old L.C. Smith Typewriter plant in Syracuse, New York, when that building was demolished. It was through this list that we learned of the Tod engine, and learned that we really could rescue a comparatively small engine. Many times when we hit a snag, the folks on this list gave suggestions, explanations and encouragement, and kept us headed in the right direction.
Well, after 8 years of work, we finally got to a point where we could test her on compressed air. We only have enough air for about 3 power strokes on this 18 x 36" cylinder, but to see her under power for the first time in over 56 years was, well, ....AWESOME! For those who don't know, 450 horsepower @ 150 RPM on 145 PSI steam, 7 ton 11' flywheel. We have a lot of small details to attend to, such as a leaky packing on the piston rod, oiler line piping, indicator pipes, etc., but we're almost there. The boiler is about 85% complete, and we hope to be done by spring. We took a few videos, less than 15 seconds each so they should not be too much to download. Here are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/v/YkmoWjqsCwo
http://www.youtube.com/v/6mio1Ub_2q4
http://www.youtube.com/v/ZXGH5fcjlXQ
To see the project web pages, a little out of date now, go to:
http://www.eriecanalcamillus.com
and click on "steam engine".
Thanks to all of you who helped, some indirectly by sharing your restoration and recovery knowledge in discussing other projects here, and some who took the time to answer our many questions. I don't think we would have had the nerve to try this without your inspiration!
Best Regards;
Jim Mackessy
Camillus Canal Society Steam Engine Project




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