Ready for the USS Monitor Engine ? For HSM advocates

[Rich Carlstedt]

Ready for the USS Monitor's Steam Engine ?

The original Post with this Title ran on the Chaski website 13 years and 2 weeks ago .
This posting is a special announcement about the drawings of this engine !

Those of you who subscribe and have received your HSM March/April issue already know the contents of this posting but I want all to know .

A lot has transpired since that introduction years ago, but most important now is that I have finished all the drawings describing the engine and its components in full detail.
For those unfamiliar with this engine, here is my miniature replica in 1/16 th scale


Because knowledge of this engine was lost in History I have spent the past 25 years + researching all information and the few drawings on this unique steam engine , even before the original engine was recovered from the depths of the ocean in 2001. No other Vibrating Lever Engine of John Ericsson's creativity exists today. The Engine was extremely compact for it's day and was built for the USS Monitor "Ironclad" in the Civil War..but that is a misnomer as the Monitor was truly the first All Steel Battleship with Rotating Gun Turret. I assist the Mariners Museum in Newport News Virginia with their recovery efforts by providing them information on the design, and drawings, of the engine parts. I made my original drawings over 20 years ago , but have remade them into modern form and format these past 4 years . It is my pleasure to offer these drawings to the Model community and Historians for their personal use only and not for resale. These drawings are Copyrighted and Registered . Through the kind efforts and assistance of George Bulliss and Home Shop Magazine (HSM) , these drawings are available on the HSM website for downloading and are free !
It is my donation to our National Heritage and the modeling community . I am grateful to Village Press for their support and interest !

The file is very large ( 27+ M ) and is broken up into 22 separate packets which can be easily organized by the recipient into 18 files.
The drawings are in PDF format for easy printing and were originally done in 11 x17 sheet format due to details.
The total prints amount to 309 pages in 18 sections and the drawings are for the full size engine, not the model.
Smaller sheets may be printed , but some loss may occur. Go here to download

https://www.homeshopmachinist.net/resources/downloads/

You may visit my website for further information on the Engine as well as other models

http://www.stationarysteam.com/

The original post discussing the model in detail occurred with the above title at this website in 2008 :
http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/vie ... hp?t=78299

Enjoy my friends , and please honor my wishes about personal use, and also thank George for his kind support

Rich Carlstedt

[Stu]

Very nice gesture Rich, I've seen the model several times at the Cabin Fever Expo and was extremely impressed by you knowledge and expertise in building it.
Bill Stupak

[MikeHenry]

What a terrific gift to the model engineering community!

[RB211]

Wow, thank you so much!

[TGTool]

Rich,

When I visited with you at NAMES a number of years ago you described the research you did to figure out the original design. (That included overcoming the impediments of some stuffy curators who didn't understand completely what they had and were not inclined to let some "amateur" figure it out.) I was as impressed with your personal story as the design of the engine itself, amazing as it is. I hope you'll write that up somewhere to encourage others to persist.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Thank You gentlemen for your gracious comments .
I got into the drawings because I am writing a book on the engine and needed better drawings than my AutoCad 95 prints for explaining some of the functions and assets in the design.
That stopped my book writing for 4 years as I had to go to college to learn 3D Cad work and now that the drawings are completed, I am resuming the "text" book work. Hopefully that will be finished by years end. The book will be published by the Mariners Museum in Newport News Virginia when completed.
Yes TGTool, it's not easy to gain information from some museums and colleges. They seem to think they own it and no need to share it , which is contrary to their objective you would think ?

Rich

[RB211]

People will be people. Luckily some are like you and want to share the real history.

[mattthemuppet]

that is incredible and very cool!

[Mcgyver]

Rich, from what I saw of what you posted here, it was clearly model made to the highest standards. Making the drawings available like that is a very nice gesture, thanks.

[sid pileski]

Rich- Very beautiful work, and a generous offer to our modeling community.
I've seen the engine in person at Cabin Fever. Super attention to all details!

Please keep us up to date on the publication of your book too.

Sounds like it will be very interesting.

Thanks, Sid

[RB211]

Interesting video, I recognize some parts thanks to the model Rich made.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Thanks RB211, a great video on the work of preservation being done and you can see the engine at 9:40 ~
The ship rolled over during sinking and the recovered engine is still upside down. They will fully dis-assemble the engine before turning it upright
as the strength of the Cast Iron parts is greatly diminished and they do not want undue forces applied.
Rich

[Rich Carlstedt]

I should have posted these very short videos showing the working of the Vibrating Lever Engine
The first is Ericssons Original concept of 1858 and the second was the Trunk version of the same Vibrating Lever principal used in the Monitor in 1862
First is the 1858 engine

http://www.stationarysteam.com/linked/patent_engine_assembly_2-10.mp4

and this is 1/2 of the Monitor engine to scale showing the Trunk design improvement, eliminating the Crossheads
That propeller is 9 feet in diameter and the scale is correct

http://www.stationarysteam.com/linked/rich_s__monitor_motion_video_from_sw.mp4

Rich

[J Tiers]

......................... They will fully dis-assemble the engine before turning it upright
as the strength of the Cast Iron parts is greatly diminished and they do not want undue forces applied.
Rich

I "get" the intent, but how do they plan to "disassemble"? There are bolts, and I would not bet on being able to get those out, as in most cases that may be more stressful than lifting the engine.

Some things are better left undone when the potential results are bad. At least that is true in the "museum restoration" business.

[Rich Carlstedt]

I "get" the intent, but how do they plan to "disassemble"? There are bolts, and I would not bet on being able to get those out, as in most cases that may be more stressful than lifting the engine................

well Jerry , there are couple of things . The ship sank off Cape Hatteras NC in 270 feet of water that had the Gulf Stream (Warm and lots of Oxygen ! ) running through it , And was there for 138 years before partial recovery. So the damage from the salt water is extensive ...to Steel. ! . not cast Iron so much and almost nothing to Brass/Bronze. The steel parts, like bolts just dissolved and left the CI parts sitting without fasteners. I am not a metallurgical engineer , but apparently the more bound up the Iron molecules were with carbon, the less attrition from the sea water. The Cast Iron parts kept their shape, but are weak , while the bolts with very low carbon content look like a severely weather fence post and will crumble when touched " if they are still there !" So all the brass oil cups are pristine and the bolts are mostly gone. For example the cylinder head studs and nuts were gone , but cylinder heads were stuck to the cylinder because of what is called concretion -- Now this is totally different than say the Titannic , which has been in 30 degree water ( 4,000 ft) which has no oxygen and after 100 years , looks pristine and no degradation.
The Museum is or has become a leader in the World for ship preservation techniques because this recovery has so many differences.

To get an idea, look at this blog about re-boring the cannons on the Monitor

https://blog.marinersmuseum.org/2020/04/gun-boring-no-gun-fascinating/

Rich