Sold October 2010 Back to Archive

A set of castings, mainly in iron and gunmetal, for a replica late nineteenth century Guy compound launch engine. I bought these from my friend Bob nearly ten years ago – he’d had them for twenty years then, acquired from a local engineering company that had closed down on the demise of its owner. Some machining had been done, to a high standard as might be expected from the owner’s occupation, including the boring of the cylinders – however most of the castings are a they arrived from the foundry.

In the last ten years they have sat in another friend’s workshop – he has now had one of those painful rationalisations we all need now and again, whereby you take a long hard look at man-hours committed to planned projects versus years left to you in this life…

The engine is a slide valve compound, the crank runs on roller bearings to main and big end bearings. Reversing is by Stephenson’s gear – whilst there are no drawings with the engine, there are several good sources of information to derive a workable set of dimensions for the valve gear. I would particularly recommend Don Ashton’s excellent book “Design Procedures for Walschaert’s and Stephenson’s Valve gear”.

Weight of castings 200 pounds
Bore 4 7/8 + 2 3/8 inches
Stroke 4 inches