I can see your point, John. If all the engines one saw were conserved relics, then that would be just as dull as all the engines being as though they had rolled out of the showroom door!
I'm convinced that there is room for all opinions, as I find museum attitudes as irksome in respect of conservative conservation as the metal detectorist polishing a 1,000 year old artefact. Like both left and right wing politics, either extreme is terrible and similar in social effect.
Regards,
Kim Siddorn
We have them all!
We have several engines that were at a stage where we felt total restoration was required and that has been done.
We have one that is a wreck and for the moment will be displayed in that way.
The rest have sufficient original paint and lining for them to displayed as found.
We get comments from all sides so there is no way of pleasing everybody. Quite a few have said it would be much nicer to see them painted and polished but an equal number are pleased we have not touched them. The majority are just happy to see them running.
Paul
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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales
On the conservation side, we are currently trying to organise everything for an application for formal Registration as a museum.
One of the requests is that all bearing surfaces and bores, i.e any wearing surface, is comprehensively measured, size, ovality, clearance etc. These measurements to be recorded against every working exhibit and taken at regular intervals to check the wear rate. Engines/machinery with a high wear rate will have to be assessed regularly and a decision taken as to how often that piece runs. If you think about the number of wearing surfaces on a typical engine it is a lot of work.
All this goes onto a bespoke object management package for the museum which now lists every item down to service tanks, oil cans etc. It will form part of the website shortly.
Paul
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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales
Sounds like bureaucratic nonsense, surely pulling an engine apart every five minutes to measure wear is not conducive to effective conservation.
Completely agree. It also supposes that there is a handy crane and a few bods with nothing better to do! I reckon Heisenberg must be in there somewhere:-) ttfn Roland PS Cold recurs worse than Jerusalem artichokes and the leak is an isolator valve! Family vote was to put a bucket under it rather than shut-down and drain the system :-)
You can understand the reasons (ish). If an engine is suffering excessive wear then obviously it should not be run as regularly to ensure that it survives.
There is very little chance that I am going to be taking the Tangye crank out every year to check it!
Like all these things the reasoning is fair but practically a non-starter.
I have taken measurements as things go together so there is a record of the current state of play.
Paul
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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales
Yep, that sounds like bureaucracy all right, well intentioned but totally divorced from reality.
wear then obviously it should not be run as
out every year to check it!
the current state of play.
Hi Paul, Could you consider recording engine test results? E.G. cylinder blow by rates? I know there are many condition monitoring devices available these days. I assume your comment about recording the state of play was an unintentional pun on the state of your bearings.
John
"John Manders" wrote
:-)
Hi John, Where do you stop. Should I be taking regular indicator diagrams? Maximum pressure readings? Fuel consumption?
We are going to take diagrams from a couple of the engines as part of the display, interesting for people to see it done.
What we are going to do is what we think sensible, and then present that to the "authorities" and see if it is acceptable. I've only found one other museum doing this at the moment.
Cheers Paul
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Internal Fire, Museum of Power, Wales
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