What's new
What's new

Hick Hargreaves Engines

billmac

Stainless
Joined
Oct 17, 2004
Location
Lancashire, UK
I have some more photos from a collection of Hick Hargreaves images. Hick Hargreaves were one of the big British mill engine builders based in Bolton Lancashire. They pioneered Corliss valve mill engines in the UK and made a large number of them. They also made drop valve and uniflow engines at a later date. Some of their engines were very large indeed - a 10,000 hp engine for power generation was an example. The company eventually stopped making mill engines but then specialised in very lare condensers for power generation.

The last set of Hick Hargreaves photos I posted were of some of their more interesting machine tools; this set is mostly engine based so I have started a new thread. There are a large number of these photos and I will post a selection in small batches with some explanation of what I think is shown. In some cases I am not sure what is going on, so please comment if you can add something.

attachment.php


This is part of a flywheel loaded on a rail wagon. A lot of work needed to get that properly blocked up and secured. The earliest mill engines were limited by the need to use horse drawn wagons for at least part of their journey to the customers site. This constraint largely went with the railway age, but parts still had to fit the loading gauge.

Flywheels were assembled and finish machined before shipping. They were were then disassembled and transported in parts that could be sensibly handled by on-site rigging. The next photo shows a flywheel assembled in the Hick Hargreaves works.

attachment.php


This shows the construction of a typical flywheel. The flywheel hub is fitted to the crankshaft with wedges/keys. This can be done quite accurately with skilled fitters - a bit like centreing a workpiece in a four jaw chuck. The rim consists of segments that are tied together with 'dog bones'. In this photo, the crankshaft is posssibly a dummy used just for this operation. At the bottom left you can see a barring gear that can be engaged with the flywheel to turn it. In the background you can see what I think is toolpost which would be used to true the flywheel. This is not a typical textile mill engine flywheel because there sre no sign of rope grooves. Possibly it was for something like a rolling mill.

Flywheels were made of cast iron. This material is of course realtively weak in tension. If a mill engine ran too fast there was a real danger of the flwheel exploding and there were number of famous disasters of this type in the UK. If you do the sums to calculate the kinetic energy stored in a flywheel of perhaps 30+ tons you get some very surprising results. A flywheel explosion had a similar effect to a bomb going off - demolishing a large part of the mill and typically causing death and injury.

attachment.php


This is a crankshaft for an engine. You can see the bearings that the crank is rotating on. In the middle is what I think is a counterweight temporarily attached to make it easier and safer to turn. You can see a gear attached to the crankshaft that is being used to turn it via a worm drive. I don't see toolposts in place so it is not clear what operation is being performed, however you can see jacking screws between the crank webs so possibly there are some checks for runout and straightness. Another possibility is that some turning operations are being done on the ends of the crank which cannot be seen in the photo.

More photos later.
 
If I remember correctly the work force went on strike at “ Hick-Hargreaves “ in the early 1970’s. I think we all contributed to the fighting fund that was set up in sympathy.

Regards Tyrone.
 
I don't know the details about that strike, but in 1968 the company was sold to Electrical & Industrial Securities Ltd and reorganised. Possibly it had something to do with that, but lots of British engineering companies were changing hands in those days, often with less than happy outcomes.
 
Here are another three photos from the collection.

attachment.php


This is a Corliss valved engine under construction. There is no flywheel in position at this stage and there may possibly be another pair of cylinders to be added. The pair of cylinders in the photo share a common piston rod, making this a 'tandem compound' arrangement. This was a very popular design for mill engines. The high pressure cylinder is at the back and the low pressure cylinder at the front. The pair of eccentrics driving the valve gear is a standard feature of Corliss valve engines. The four valves are very obvious on the low pressure cylinder. The inlet valves are at the top of the cylinder and the exhaust valves below them. These valves have a semi-rotary action and are moved by the links through the central wrist plates.

The governor, which you can see in the background controls the timing of the cut-off of the inlet valves. These valves trip closed under strong springs and a damper arrangement. You can see the dampers hanging down under the valves.

Corliss valve engines became very common for mill engines in UK and Hick Hargreaves made many of them.

The development of governors went hand in hand with mill engine design. Mill owners needed to have a steady constant speed from their engines, regardless of the load which the mill put on the engine. This was particularly important for spinning cotton, where a variation of more than a few percent of speed would result in poor quality or even mass breakage of the cortton being spun. Mill engines were typically run with the main steam valve wide open to the boiler. All the control over power and speed was through the governor. As a result of this there was continuous pressure to develop better governors. Unfortunately the theory needed to design better governors was lacking or at least not well understood by the designers and it took a long time before significant improvements could be made with a sound theoretical basis. This is a big topic which might be worth another thread sometime.


This next engine also has Corliss valves. It is an inverted vertical cross compound engine. This means that the cylinders are at the top of the engine (inverted) and the steam works first in the high pressure cylinder on the right then 'crosses' over to the low pressure cylinder to work again.

attachment.php


The governor is very obvious in this photo. The linkage to the high pressure inlet valves can also be see. To the left you can see the condenser attached to the steam exhaust. Almost all mill engines had condensers since this significantly added to the efficiency of the engine.

The next engine is a Uniflow (or in US speak Unaflow). This was a later development than the Corliss valve and it became quite popular. The piston in this design is large and the cylinder has a belt of exhaust ports that the cylinder uncovers in its stroke. The valves you can see on the top of the cylinder are the inlet valves.

attachment.php


There is a lot more to the design than can be covered here - perhaps a more in-depth review later.

The overall design of the engine looks much more modern. Full enclosure (including the governor) are obvious improvements quite apart from the thermodynamic advantages of the design.
 
Here are another three photos from the collection.

attachment.php


This is a Corliss valved engine under construction. There is no flywheel in position at this stage and there may possibly be another pair of cylinders to be added. The pair of cylinders in the photo share a common piston rod, making this a 'tandem compound' arrangement. This was a very popular design for mill engines. The high pressure cylinder is at the back and the low pressure cylinder at the front. The pair of eccentrics driving the valve gear is a standard feature of Corliss valve engines. The four valves are very obvious on the low pressure cylinder. The inlet valves are at the top of the cylinder and the exhaust valves below them. These valves have a semi-rotary action and are moved by the links through the central wrist plates.

The governor, which you can see in the background controls the timing of the cut-off of the inlet valves. These valves trip closed under strong springs and a damper arrangement. You can see the dampers hanging down under the valves.

Corliss valve engines became very common for mill engines in UK and Hick Hargreaves made many of them.

The development of governors went hand in hand with mill engine design. Mill owners needed to have a steady constant speed from their engines, regardless of the load which the mill put on the engine. This was particularly important for spinning cotton, where a variation of more than a few percent of speed would result in poor quality or even mass breakage of the cortton being spun. Mill engines were typically run with the main steam valve wide open to the boiler. All the control over power and speed was through the governor. As a result of this there was continuous pressure to develop better governors. Unfortunately the theory needed to design better governors was lacking or at least not well understood by the designers and it took a long time before significant improvements could be made with a sound theoretical basis. This is a big topic which might be worth another thread sometime.


This next engine also has Corliss valves. It is an inverted vertical cross compound engine. This means that the cylinders are at the top of the engine (inverted) and the steam works first in the high pressure cylinder on the right then 'crosses' over to the low pressure cylinder to work again.

attachment.php


The governor is very obvious in this photo. The linkage to the high pressure inlet valves can also be see. To the left you can see the condenser attached to the steam exhaust. Almost all mill engines had condensers since this significantly added to the efficiency of the engine.

The next engine is a Uniflow (or in US speak Unaflow). This was a later development than the Corliss valve and it became quite popular. The piston in this design is large and the cylinder has a belt of exhaust ports that the cylinder uncovers in its stroke. The valves you can see on the top of the cylinder are the inlet valves.

attachment.php


There is a lot more to the design than can be covered here - perhaps a more in-depth review later.

The overall design of the engine looks much more modern. Full enclosure (including the governor) are obvious improvements quite apart from the thermodynamic advantages of the design.

I spy a “ T&K “ lubricator in the last photo. The company I worked for bought them out when the owner decided to retire. We used them on all our machines. I think they were a Bolton company.

Regards Tyrone.
 
We had so many old lubricators in store in our museum that we have cleaned a lot of them up and made several big displays. The variety of different lubricator designs from those days is amazing. The older ones in particular have heavy brass castings and some very elaborate drives. Typically the older ones picked up their drive from some convenient part of the valve gear.

We often need to explain to visitors that nearly all mill engines had total loss lubrication. After the oil was pumped or otherwise fed to bearings it just fell on the floor (or strategically placed trays).
 
We had so many old lubricators in store in our museum that we have cleaned a lot of them up and made several big displays. The variety of different lubricator designs from those days is amazing. The older ones in particular have heavy brass castings and some very elaborate drives. Typically the older ones picked up their drive from some convenient part of the valve gear.

We often need to explain to visitors that nearly all mill engines had total loss lubrication. After the oil was pumped or otherwise fed to bearings it just fell on the floor (or strategically placed trays).

When we bought out “ T&K” we went through their files and the list of previous customers was amazing. You name a blue chip British engineering company and they made lubricators for them.

The last man standing at “ T&K “ ( John Kirkham ? ) came over to show a pal of mine how to build the lubricators and my pal made them for years. When he went on holiday I took over building them for a fortnight or so. Everything was subcontracted out barring assembling the pumps. All the components etc. Just one man was building them and the prices the pumps and the spares went for was amazing. It was goldmine. Just one example - the screws holding the pump units to the the front of the boxes were 7/32” Whitworth cheese heads about 3/4” long. That was a deliberate plan to make them really hard to replace. Back in the day they were charging £1 each for them ! When the place went bust the company that was subcontracted to make all the parts bought out the “ goldmine “. As far as I know they are still making them.

Regards Tyrone.
 
I will have a look and see what we have on our displays. Quite likely we have at least one of the T&K lubricators but I wasn't really paying much attention when a couple of colleagues were preparing them. Or you could come and have a look yourself.
 
Here is another photo from the collection.

attachment.php


This photo appears to show an engine in its final location - the engine house of the customer's mill. Most likely the photo was taken as the engine was being commissioned. The somewhat posed shot shows adjustment being made to the governor.

The cylinder shown appears to be a drop valve design. There was probably a second cylinder on the left hand side of the flywheel and that cylinder was probably the low pressure cylinder. This would make the overall design a cross-compound engine - the steam works first in the high pressure cylinder (the smaller diameter) then crosses over to the low pressure cylinder. This general arrangement was very common for textile mill engines.

The flywheel has all its ropes fitted. Rope drives became the standard way of transmitting power from the engine to all the floors in a mill. At each floor there would be a grooved pulley that drove line shafting. Mills often had four stories or more and a vertical rope race or tower was built at one end of the building to house all these ropes. These towers had of course to be open spaces and there was a considerable fire risk in having such a large potential chimney adjacent to large amounts of combustible material.

The ropes were made of a specific type of cotton. They were relatively cheap, easy to maintain, quiet and had a long life.

UK practice had individual ropes for each groove. US practice used a single continuous rope running back and forth between the pulleys with a tensioning device. I don't know why this was adopted in the US - it would seem to make maintenance a nightmare because the whole rope would need to be removed and refitted in the case of a local problem - say with a pulley on one floor. UK textile mills were probably bigger than the average in the US so this was perhaps less of a problem.

A single rope could transmit between 30 - 50 hp, depending on factors such as the diameter of the rope, the rope speed etc. This gives a rough guide to the designed power of a mill engine - count up the ropes on the flywheel. The engine shown in the photo probably has about 40 grooves and was therefore about 1500 hp. This is power that could be delivered continuously for the life-time of the engine, which was often 40 years or more. Mill owners would start with an engine that was sized for the power needed in their mill, but then they would add more and more machinery and require that the engine drove it even though this would significantly exceed the designed power of the engine.

Early mill engines did not typically use rope drives. A gear drive arrangment was common where the flwheel would have gear teeth cut on its periphery and this would drive a smaller gear wheel. From that gear the drive was taken through a bevel gear set to a verical shaft that ran up through the mill building. At each floor there would be another bevel gear set that would drive line shafting. Whilst this must have seemed logical at the time it was really not a good design. There were few or no machine tools that could cut mill gears of the diameter of a flwheel, so typically the teeth were cast and then fitters would file the teeth to shape using templates. That is an enormous task that must have taken weeks. The teeth would be made with a generous amount of backlash to avoid problems with meshing with the second gear wheel. The bevel gear sets were also problematic. Bilgrams' patent on a method for making accurate bevel gears came out in 1884. Prior to that date bevel gears could be cut using various approximating methods but the results were not very satisfactory for transmitting significant power. The result was a lot of noise and vibration and gears that wore fairly quickly. The vibration was transmitted to the fabric for the mill building and this caused loosening of brickwork.

In our museum we have one engine that uses this type of drive. A rumble can be felt through your feet while standing near it when running.
 
A single rope with a tensioner provides the exact same tension per groove. With multiple ropes, some ropes will stretch more than others which will put more load on some and less load on others.
 
A single rope with a tensioner provides the exact same tension per groove. With multiple ropes, some ropes will stretch more than others which will put more load on some and less load on others.

It is true that a single rope with a tensioner will have the same tension in each groove, but but only under steady state conditions. In a typical textile mill spinning cotton on multiple floors, individual machines would be stopping and starting all the time. When the power required by the lineshafting on a particular floor rises suddenly, the tension in one side of the rope run to that floor will increase significantly and it will stretch a little and vice-versa. The load to other floors will similarly be changing all the time. In order for there to be constant tension per groove the tensioning device has to redistribute stretch and slack throughout the entire length of the endless rope. I'm not familiar enough with the US system to know how well this worked - it would be interesting to hear how it did this.

In the UK system each pulley groove carries a single rope. There is no tensioning device, nor is any required. The ropes are heavy and the centres of the flywheel drum and the pulleys on each floor are offset horizontally, sometimes by a significant amount. The weight of the hanging rope and the very large wrap of the ropes allows full power to be carried without additional tensioning. The ropes are fitted so that they are close to the same lengths, but it will still work efficiently if there are small variations.

I do not think the US system could be effectively used in UK mills. If we take as a small example the engine in the photos above. This engine's flywheel has 40 grooves and might be driving a mill with 4 floors. If a floor is about 10 feet high in a mill and we have equal numbers of ropes to each floor and the horizontal centre distance between crankshaft and pulleys is about 30 feet we need a minimum length of about 2,800 feet of heavy cotton rope and this ignores the diameter of the flywheel itself. I'm fairly sure that this would not have been available in one length, I think multiple splices would be needed - and this is certainly not the largest mill. Fitting a length of rope like this would be a 'significant' job.

The UK system allowed individual lengths of rope to be removed and refitted without too much difficulty.

Both systems obviously worked, and I imagine that there were discussions like this crossing the Atlantic in the heyday of such mills.
 
It is true that a single rope with a tensioner will have the same tension in each groove, but but only under steady state conditions. In a typical textile mill spinning cotton on multiple floors, individual machines would be stopping and starting all the time. When the power required by the lineshafting on a particular floor rises suddenly, the tension in one side of the rope run to that floor will increase significantly and it will stretch a little and vice-versa. The load to other floors will similarly be changing all the time. In order for there to be constant tension per groove the tensioning device has to redistribute stretch and slack throughout the entire length of the endless rope. I'm not familiar enough with the US system to know how well this worked - it would be interesting to hear how it did this.

In the UK system each pulley groove carries a single rope. There is no tensioning device, nor is any required. The ropes are heavy and the centres of the flywheel drum and the pulleys on each floor are offset horizontally, sometimes by a significant amount. The weight of the hanging rope and the very large wrap of the ropes allows full power to be carried without additional tensioning. The ropes are fitted so that they are close to the same lengths, but it will still work efficiently if there are small variations.

I do not think the US system could be effectively used in UK mills. If we take as a small example the engine in the photos above. This engine's flywheel has 40 grooves and might be driving a mill with 4 floors. If a floor is about 10 feet high in a mill and we have equal numbers of ropes to each floor and the horizontal centre distance between crankshaft and pulleys is about 30 feet we need a minimum length of about 2,800 feet of heavy cotton rope and this ignores the diameter of the flywheel itself. I'm fairly sure that this would not have been available in one length, I think multiple splices would be needed - and this is certainly not the largest mill. Fitting a length of rope like this would be a 'significant' job.

The UK system allowed individual lengths of rope to be removed and refitted without too much difficulty.

Both systems obviously worked, and I imagine that there were discussions like this crossing the Atlantic in the heyday of such mills.

One of the places I worked at had been a millwrighting company in the heyday of cotton mills. They branched out into other lines of work when the mills started closing down. They still had the sign off the old horse drawn waggon from back in the 19th century.

One of the older guys ( he’d be about 70 in the mid 1970’s ) had been a millwright and he told tales of cutting keyways by hand with a hammer and chisel up in the rope race. This was by the light of a candle stuck to the peak of his flat cap allegedly.

Regards Tyrone.
 
Rope races are scarey places. I don't really like working at heights although I can do it when needed. A 5+ story drop down an unlight windowless tower is not ideal. When the engine is running the ropes are travelling at up to 5,000 feet per minute. You really don't want to be working anywhere near that.
 
It is true that a single rope with a tensioner will have the same tension in each groove, but but only under steady state conditions. In a typical textile mill spinning cotton on multiple floors, individual machines would be stopping and starting all the time. When the power required by the lineshafting on a particular floor rises suddenly, the tension in one side of the rope run to that floor will increase significantly and it will stretch a little and vice-versa. The load to other floors will similarly be changing all the time. In order for there to be constant tension per groove the tensioning device has to redistribute stretch and slack throughout the entire length of the endless rope. I'm not familiar enough with the US system to know how well this worked - it would be interesting to hear how it did this.

In the UK system each pulley groove carries a single rope. There is no tensioning device, nor is any required. The ropes are heavy and the centres of the flywheel drum and the pulleys on each floor are offset horizontally, sometimes by a significant amount. The weight of the hanging rope and the very large wrap of the ropes allows full power to be carried without additional tensioning. The ropes are fitted so that they are close to the same lengths, but it will still work efficiently if there are small variations.

I do not think the US system could be effectively used in UK mills. If we take as a small example the engine in the photos above. This engine's flywheel has 40 grooves and might be driving a mill with 4 floors. If a floor is about 10 feet high in a mill and we have equal numbers of ropes to each floor and the horizontal centre distance between crankshaft and pulleys is about 30 feet we need a minimum length of about 2,800 feet of heavy cotton rope and this ignores the diameter of the flywheel itself. I'm fairly sure that this would not have been available in one length, I think multiple splices would be needed - and this is certainly not the largest mill. Fitting a length of rope like this would be a 'significant' job.

The UK system allowed individual lengths of rope to be removed and refitted without too much difficulty.

Both systems obviously worked, and I imagine that there were discussions like this crossing the Atlantic in the heyday of such mills.

I believe for multiple floors, multiple adjusters would be used, one rope and adjuster per floor.

Here is a good little book with a section on rope drives.

Google Books
 
Hick Hargreaves also made diesel engines.
attachment.php


This engine appears to be set up for testing. I think I can see a Heenan and Froude dynamometer on the left hand side of the engine coupled to the crankshaft. Heenan & Froude are another interesting company - might be worth a thread at some other time.

On the right hand end of the engine there is the air compressor. Diesel engines like this were typically started with compressed air and often had a fairly complicated start procedure.

The steam heritage shows through in the construction of the engine. Although it is obviously robustly built, it shares similal design features with their steam engines.

The next two photos show a batch of engines under construction. It might be possible to date these photos - I will see if I can find them in the records.

attachment.php



attachment.php


Hick Hargreaves did not make diesel engines for very long. I suspect that the competition from other diesel engine makers was quite strong and possibly they were late to the market.
 
billmac,

Thanks for the excellent photos!

Looking at the diesel engine photos - the first engine has '1910' written on the base and while it may not be the date, I reckon it is about right. Features of the engine, e.g. the separate A-frames supporting the cylinders, were typical of diesels from around 1900 onwards.

The compressor on the end of the engine would be for the air blast fuel injection.

I would guess Hick-Hargreaves were using the designs of one of the European manufacturers.
 
billmac,

Looking at the diesel engine photos - the first engine has '1910' written on the base and while it may not be the date, I reckon it is about right. Features of the engine, e.g. the separate A-frames supporting the cylinders, were typical of diesels from around 1900 onwards.

I agree that the date is quite plausible. I am told that the E number refers to the number of the engine built in that year. so the last photo would be the 368'th engine of all types built in that year.

The compressor on the end of the engine would be for the air blast fuel injection.

I would guess Hick-Hargreaves were using the designs of one of the European manufacturers.

Yes - of course, it would almost certainly be an air blast injection engine and quite possibly something built under licence.
 
Hick, Hargreaves diesel engines - not made under licence:-

From The Engineer, 16 May 1913:-

This firm has won a great reputation by its big horizontal steam engines for mill driving , but has had no gas engine experience. It has, however, boldly set to work, and, without taking out a Continental licence, has worried out the problem for itself, and it must be said has succeeded in producing a very satisfactory Diesel engine, though it must be admitted that it is not in all respects completely up-to-date …..

Incidentally, I was surprised to see this in the same article:-

We might also add that, the Mirrlees Company [Mirrlees, Bickerton & Day] a little while ago completed a satisfactory arrangement with the G.E. Company of Schenectady, which will enable the latter firm to manufacture Diesel engines on the Mirrlees lines, i.e., to its drawings and instructions.

The 1913 article includes the same illustration as Billmac’s first diesel photo, but retouched. It’s a 300 HP engine. I suspect the number painted on the side of the bedplate 19.4.0 – 19 tons 4 cwt 0lbs.

A point of interest is the flywheel.


Before passing on, we should just like to touch upon .... the " universal "
flywheel designed by this firm for testing all sizes of Diesel engines constructed by it. Firstly, there is a centre rim 11ft. 6in. in diameter, alongside which similar rims can be bolted to bring the weight up to the amount required for the engine under test. This centre rim is attached to the boss by only three arms at 120 deg. by bolts in slotted holes on the rim, so that it can give to the centrifugal force, but having three arms it will always remain concentric with the boss. This boss is fitted with coned bushes in segments, and these are driven in to fit the diameter of the s haft which is being used at the time, and a hot ring is then put on over them and shrinks them up absolutely tight. .... This method of attachment is so satisfactory that though the rim weighs 12 tons and was running at 175 revolutions per minute, the sudden stoppage of the engine did not shift the boss a hair’s breadth on the shaft, a rather remarkable thing in view of the troubles which have been experienced in the attachment of fly-wheels to Diesel engines
.
 








 
Back
Top