Seeking the Boy's Own Model Gas Engine

Introduction: The Boy's Own Paper published five articles in 1895 describing the construction of a horizontal gas engine. It is said that this design provided the inspiration for the first Petter gas engine. I discovered the articles during the seventies, and have finally found time to study them. I hope, if possible, to build an engine.

The Engine: This is a single cylinder four-stroke of 1 1/2" bore and 2 7/8"stroke , with hot tube ignition and a built in water jacket. It is set up to run on town gas, but for country dwellers there is also an evaporator to make your own gas from gasoline. It can be made entirely on a 3 1/2" gap-bed lathe with backgear. A small planing machine would also be useful, as would an overhead milling attachment for gear cutting in the lathe...

A full set of castings is available from Jackson & Co. of High Street, Brentford, price £2 10s, and a full size drawing for a further 5s.

Progress so far: I have disentangled the labyrinthine Victorian prose, but the woodcuts, though they are many, have defeated me. They are distinctly not to scale and yield conflicting results when stepping off with dividers from known dimensions.For example, the flywheel appears to be somewhere between 10" and 14" in diameter when scaled up from the views I have. Jackson & Co. seem to have moved without leaving a forwarding address, so at present I am faced with making a 'recreation in the style of' rather than an authentic reproduction.

My Quest: is to track down a surviving example, a set of castings, or (a chance in a million) the full size drawing so I can get some accurate dimensions. My guess is that a number of castings were bought and started, very few were finished, and there may be one copy of the drawing surviving in a pile of papers somewhere. I'd gladly give 7/6d for a copy! Identifying the engine wouldn't be easy because as far as I can tell there were no identifying marks on the castings.

My Request: I have corresponded with Geoff Challinor of the Anson Engine Museum, who has heard of it but never seen one. So, any information, suggestions of places I might look, more people I might ask, piles of paper I might search through... anything will be welcome.

George

You might try asking Graham Corry (Alyn Foundry) as he knows a thing or two about early hot tube ignition both model and full size. He does post on Model Engine Maker Forum so that would be first port of call.

Even if you can't find castings it does not look too hard to fabricate/cut from solid.

Keep us posted of progress.

J

> A full set of castings is available from Jackson & Co. of High Street, Brentford, price £2 10s, and a full size drawing for a further 5s.

Like Billy Buter, I just need my postal order...

I'm sure that mention of Billy Bunter makes you guilty of some 'ism' or other and you'll be in trouble. Yaroo!

Chiz!

The ism-fulness is terrific.

A few years later when you those little boys has stopped wearing shorts & taking Boys Own and instead were buying Model Engineer & Amateur Electrician they would have found a series on building a very similar engine. Price had gone upto £3 for an all inclusive kit but for those with a small piggy bank the basic castings could be had for £2

Makes the 1/2 h.p. Parsell and Weed engine a positive power house in comparison. You did have to make your own castings for it, though and it did have 2 x 14" flywheels which would have taken some machining at home in 1902.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Well over 650 viewings of this thread so far, but no sightings of the elusive machine. I'm not really surprised, but I'll keep looking. People have been very helpful, and some have heard of the Boy's Own Model Gas Engine but never seen one. The search continues. It has been suggested to me that there may have been an article in a magazine, possibly 'Stationary Engine', which talked about the Boy's Own Engine. Any ideas?

Looking for Jackson's in Brentford High Street has not so much drawn a blank as thrown up a puzzle, as Jackson's never were at 363, so the dream of a copy in the firm's archives crumbles to dust (it's astonishing how many nineteenth century firms are still in existence).

Next thing is to try to track down the family of H.F. Hobden, the author of the articles. He was obviously a very competent engineer and a regular contributor to the Boy's Own Paper, so a proud family may have a copy in the family archives waiting to be discovered. The likeliest thing is that there is a completed example sitting in a collection somewhere, but nobody knows what it is.

In parallel with these searches I have started 'reverse engineering' the design from the BOP articles, with the intention of making patterns, getting castings, and making an engine. It is very challenging to obtain dimensions from woodcut illustrations which were described by the author as 'not to scale' . However, I have some of the critical dimensions from the text, and the rest should be able to follow. I'll keep you informed.

George

.

George,

This might get you started on the Family History track: **LINK**

http://www.benfleethistory.org.uk/page_id__37_path__0p23p17p10p.aspx

MichaelG.

Thanks Michael, that's a useful lead.

George

The OP says: at present I am faced with making a 'recreation in the style of' rather than an authentic reproduction

Can I suggest that this would be entirely in the way that the original Boys would have approached it. In my limited experience such articles rarely 'worked' in any exact sense, so anyone that persevered would find details which had to be guessed. I had a book called 'Build your own motorcycle' from 1905 which included advice such as 'Get the local blacksmith to make your connecting rod ...' and showed a sketch of what was required. And when it came to ignition it was entirely void of useful information. I lent the book to an engineer and never saw it again.

Except that most of the Boys would have thought 'Jolly interesting' and done nothing more. I expect that Jackson & Co went out of business because of the stock of castings which nobody ever ordered.

And anyway, how many of the original Boys will be around to point out any alleged deviations in your version?

Finally, when you get that far, the 'petrol' which was used in those days was much more volatile than the modern stuff; I think 'petroleum ether' is more like what you need. And good luck with evaporating that in your cosy wooden shed...

Cheers, Tim

Tim, although I take your point about every engine ending up different, they would have had a common starting point in the kit of castings, so would have had a very strong family resemblance. Thus a cognoscente looking at one could say 'Ah, that's a Boy's Own'. So my ideal would be that any such person (possibly the owner of the only one ever completed) looking at mine would say 'Ah, that's a Boy's Own, or a very close relation to it'. Or conversely would look at mine and say 'Ah, that's just like my unidentified engine - it must be a Boy's Own'.

As for Messrs Jackson & Co, the number of castings they sold would have been less than the number of boys who had access to a 3 1/2" lathe. And as you rightly say, the number of boys who had the stickability and access to expertise to see the project through to completion would have been even smaller.

However, herein lies a puzzle. Through the power of the internet I contacted a lady who has done a great deal of research into the history of Brentford High Street, and it turns out there never was a Jackson at No 363 in 1895, but a stationer and school inspector, Richard Christie by name. However, there was a WH Jackson at 352, a 'general printer' who boasted the largest printing works in West Middlesex (the origin of the full size drawings?). There is no evidence of a foundry anywhere in the street. I have a theory which fits all this as well as the link to the BOP, and satisfies the requirements of Occam's Razor, but this isn't the time or place to go into it. You might like to formulate your own theory!

You don't need to worry about me in the shed with petrol. I've read and taken note of the author's warnings:

"Most of you have heard of that volatile spirit known as "Gasoline"; it is highly inflammable, and requires due care and caution when using it, but with proper care there is no danger. It must not be brought near a light, and should be kept well corked, and care taken not to spill any in a room or closed place, as, being so volatile, it evaporates and mixes with the air at once, and if any large quantity was spilled would form an explosive compound; and I therefore want to impress upon you the necessity of care and caution in handling it."

George