| Description | 169 horse power double-acting sun & planet engine, with 60 inch cylinder, 9 foot stroke, parallel motion, braced beam.
[The drawings for this engine differ in format to the usual portfolio contents. Because the engine was so large, featured a braced beam and was for an overseas customer, the component drawings are more numerous and on a larger scale than usual. The drawings are therefore described in rough chronological order following their letter codes. All the drawings are uncoloured reverse copies and bear letter codes unless otherwise noted.]
General view of the engine with numerous pencil alterations, "elementary sketch" of the beam with note about an experiment; beam components - stays etc.; plans and sections of the engine house; air pump, condensing vessel, parallel motion, working gear (coloured front and side views), piston rod and cap, ends of the parallel bars, ends of great perpendicular link, section of the beam, saddle plates for outer end of beam, stays and pins, beam stays, sun & planet wheels and connecting rod; joggle plates for the ends of the plummer blocks, boiler steam pipes, fly wheel.
Detailed sections and plans of the saw mill, showing machinery, floors, connection to the engine etc.
Plans and sections of the engine and boiler, foundations of the arches; top of connecting rod, altered great perpendicular links, connecting links; front views and plan of the engine and boiler; connecting rod, gudgeon etc. - drawing made for Bradley Works; parallel motion - coloured drawing showing the entire beam, stays, connecting rods etc.; plans and sections of the beam and parallel motion; catch pins; diagram of the parallel motion, plans and sections of the walls supporting the beams under the cylinder platform and cistern (coloured); rods connecting the governor and throttle valve.
Various undated and uncoded drawings including: rough general view of the engine (not reverse); plans of the engine; plan of the boiler seating and engine house; plans and sections of the boiler; rough drawings of the saw mill apparatus; plan of the saw frames; sketch of the saw frames, shafts etc.
Also a 22 page press copy memorandum pasted into a booklet, entitled "Description of the Engine BWS intended to work a Saw Mill for Don Fernando de Torres", dated Birmingham, 11 Sep. 1791, with a shorter 5 page version.
Original Portfolio or 'Book' No. 137. Catalogue of Old Engines p. 58.
For Don Fernando Casado de Torres. Saw mill, Cadiz, Spain. The engine was usually referred to by its code, "BWS", which may have stood for "Boulton & Watt Spain." Fermin de Tastet & Co. acted as de Torres' agents during negotiations for the engine. The engine was of unusually large construction. The engine still had not been completed in Feb. 1794, when Antonio de Tastet told Boulton & Watt that de Torres had gone prospecting for coal mines in Asturias and might not come to Cadiz again very soon - "… in this case I should not be surprised if the project of this immense Engine should vanish." The Catalogue of Old Engines says that a model was made of the beam, which survives in The Science Museum, London.
See also: Incoming Correspondence.
Published references: Tann, p. 150 - plan of the saw mill. |