Radstock museum

I went to my club?s crank up at the Radstock Museum on Sunday. Unbeknown to me there was a SE rally at the National Waterways Museum hosted by the Mid Glos SE club. I wish I?d known as I?d have rather gone there and had the opportunity to have a play with the bloody great Fielding engine that they operate on such occasions. I do school talks there about Vikings and have been going there for years and never seen it run.

Bugger!

Anyway, it was quite a nice day, no adventures with the weather and although overcast, I was in a tee shirt all day until gone four.

Only bit of excitement was the Amanco 3hp that slipped its moorings in the trailer as it snapped its trolley like a carrot (4? softwood) and plunged into the trailer bed. In a great tribute to the strength of its carburettor, it was dragged forth and run sans wheels for a lot of the day. Winching it back in was interesting, the trailer being pulled underneath the static engine until reluctantly it was lugged in by main force.

I took three engines along and ran the Norman T300 Marine engine without pause all day. It was difficult to start at first, then, to humour a nice old boy, I acquiesced to his suggestion that a dab of pencil lead on the plug gap would make it go. To my mind this is purest old wive's tale and smacks of black magic, so I was dumbfounded when it worked and the engine fired up straight away!

OK, OK, pass the chalk and how many points does a pentacle have?

My ten quid's worth of hybrid Iron Pony (too small to be a Horse!) started second pull and drove the rotary converter all day without hesitation.

The unknown engine started OK, ran for ten minutes and stopped. Repeat when cold. Third time, there was a metallic clang and it stopped short. It was definitely one of those "I'm not going again until a knowing hand has touched my secret places" noise ;o)) When I examined its entrails yesterday, it was nothing more than a small nut and a bit of metal too mangled to identify jamming the flywheel magneto and although I examined it with a spectroscope, a horoscope and a telescope, I could see no candidate place from whence it came. It has whacked the HT coil, so fingers crossed on that one ? Inside the flywheel, I found Canadian patent marks and, on the otherwise illegibly rusted steel makers label, a serial number starting ?RSC?. Setting aside the thought that the Royal Shakespeare Company once made industrial engines, this knowledge brings me no closer to knowing who made it.

The little Merlin compressor got a lot of attention and all in all, I had a good day.

On the way home a woman on a moped gave me the finger when I politely beeped her to draw her attention to the fact that her top box was open. So I drove over the litre of milk, the pound of butter and the loaf of bread that leapt out of her top box one after the other directly into my path. Each time a beep was rewarded with an ever more vehement finger. When we stopped at the lights, I drew up alongside her to receive a withering stare, I shouted twice that her top box was open, waving and pointing. She eventually craned her neck to look round - and fell off in a most ignominious heap.

I'm afraid I laughed as I drove away ...............

Regards,

Kim Siddorn,

Hi Kim, I have been collecting engines for 25 years. I wouldn't dream of taking a spark ignition engine to a show without a

-- Dave Croft Warrington England