Sold December 2023 Back to Archive

A finely made model of Whitmore and Binyon's fixed steam engine, an unusual Victorian design, conceived for powering mills it was shown at London's International Exposition of 1862.

The engine has a vertically inclined crankshaft, driven by a single cylinder with integral barring gear built into the enclosed base. A pair of wide flywheels at the top of the engine provided belt drive to the mill machinery.

The work of a highly accomplished engineer, the model has come to us direct from the builder, along with his Red Wing hit & miss engine, James Booth's rectilinear engine, 20hp non-condensing beam engine and a very fine Crystal Wheel skeleton clock.

The engine runs well on air; the prototypically correct barring gear can be used to position the single cylinder engine for starting, after which sliding the handwheel outwards disengages it for running.

In a rare slip-up by this builder, the large contrate barring gear in the base has one wide tooth - the engine can be cranked just less than 360 degrees before jamming. Given that, in the full-size engine, the gear was only used to turn the engine to the nearest dead centre - a quarter of a revolution at most - it's not a significant limitation on the engine's operation.

Rather a rare model, of imposing size and technical interest; we've only ever had one other - part-built - example.