Thread: Days Flour Mill

A great thread Phil, and a great effort by all you hard working volunteers. A real shame about the procrastination and delays which have aided the eventual loss of the steam chest, but hopefully it will appear back on the scene sometime soon, and the go ahead given for the engine restoration too. Nothing wrong with the photos either, but I must say that your mate Pete looks to be an OH&S hazard around any sort of fires in his present guise, and I can only suggest that you keep a bucket of water handy, to damp him down if you see a spark heading his way, it might even pay to damp him down anyway just in case. Of course if he can outrun you, it might not pay, your call.
Thanks for your efforts in both doing the job and also documenting and sharing with us all, and best of luck with locating your lost part(s).
Rob.

Originally Posted by clear out

Hi,
Great stuff, if you can come up with some pics and a dimensioned drawing of the missing cover I would be happy to make a loose pattern for it.
We have recently been using a production iron foundry in Sydney but there are probably a few jobbing founders still in operation down your way.
H.

Hi H,
That's a fantastic offer, one that I will be keeping in mind. Getting a pattern made is the hard part so it might pay me to try and find some more pics or examples of the Bellhouse logo of which there are two different ones that I know of so far. This would still be in line with the Burra Charter as well. The original cover is our main objective as original parts are paramount in any restoration of this type. It is just damn annoying that someone would do this and it could be just sitting in a shed somewhere and probably never see the light of day again .

Originally Posted by Ropetangler

A great thread Phil, and a great effort by all you hard working volunteers. A real shame about the procrastination and delays which have aided the eventual loss of the steam chest, but hopefully it will appear back on the scene sometime soon, and the go ahead given for the engine restoration too. Nothing wrong with the photos either, but I must say that your mate Pete looks to be an OH&S hazard around any sort of fires in his present guise, and I can only suggest that you keep a bucket of water handy, to damp him down if you see a spark heading his way, it might even pay to damp him down anyway just in case. Of course if he can outrun you, it might not pay, your call.
Thanks for your efforts in both doing the job and also documenting and sharing with us all, and best of luck with locating your lost part(s).
Rob.

Hi Rob,
Pete works at the 'hill' 3 days a week and I would be lying if I said that he hadn't been singed before but as for being able to run...anywhere, past me a long time ago. Singeing the beard is what we call 'trimming the beard'. It will invariably happen if you forget to open the stack damper before opening the doors of the boiler and you suddenly find your head surrounded by fire. A mistake that 'should' only happen once in your life .
As for dousing Pete in water, I would struggle to lift a bucket and Pete would struggle to chase me so when Pete does 'trim the beard' we just look at each other and pretend it didn't happen.

Phil

Originally Posted by Steamwhisperer

Hi H,
That's a fantastic offer, one that I will be keeping in mind. Getting a pattern made is the hard part so it might pay me to try and find some more pics or examples of the Bellhouse logo of which there are two different ones that I know of so far. This would still be in line with the Burra Charter as well. The original cover is our main objective as original parts are paramount in any restoration of this type. It is just damn annoying that someone would do this and it could be just sitting in a shed somewhere and probably never see the light of day again .

Phil

Whilst i made a right clown of myself i'm glad i was wrong, i would have thought the iron would have to be matched (i'm guessing now though thats only repairs) and there would have been a dozen hoops to jump through. At least you have the option if the original does not appear.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Ueee

Whilst i made a right clown of myself i'm glad i was wrong, i would have thought the iron would have to be matched (i'm guessing now though thats only repairs) and there would have been a dozen hoops to jump through. At least you have the option if the original does not appear.

Cheers

Nope not a clown at all Ewan. In fact you are spot on. A sample of the remaining cast iron will have to be analysed for composition then those ingredients used for the new cover. Preferably a chunk of cast with the same composition cast all those years ago, melted then recast into a new cover. That's just the first few hoops. If we still had the old cover, a history has to be written and a display made of it to sit by the engine for people to see. At the moment this seems to be more gettable than finding the original.
Nope not a clown. As I say, you are spot on.

Phil

G'day Phil,
Great effort, Thanks for sharing.
Have you thought of a campaign in 'The Old Machinery Magazine' and Australian Model Engineer? Your post above is already the making of an article for them, along with all the interesting photos. This should drum up a look-out for the missing parts by those best placed to know...
cheers,
AndrewOC
PS you know about TOMM's online forum as well?

Originally Posted by AndrewOC

G'day Phil,
Great effort, Thanks for sharing.
Have you thought of a campaign in 'The Old Machinery Magazine' and Australian Model Engineer? Your post above is already the making of an article for them, along with all the interesting photos. This should drum up a look-out for the missing parts by those best placed to know...
cheers,
AndrewOC
PS you know about TOMM's online forum as well?

Great idea AndrewOC, well worth trying, you never know, it may even be of interest to some mainstream media such as the ABCs Friday nights Stateline programme.
Rob.

Originally Posted by AndrewOC

G'day Phil,
Great effort, Thanks for sharing.
Have you thought of a campaign in 'The Old Machinery Magazine' and Australian Model Engineer? Your post above is already the making of an article for them, along with all the interesting photos. This should drum up a look-out for the missing parts by those best placed to know...
cheers,
AndrewOC
PS you know about TOMM's online forum as well?

Hi Andrew,
The dilemma has been prepared for TOMM. Pete is one of their regular contributors. In fact he makes up a fair percentage of their pages. Great idea about the resto being an article as well. Might look into that.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Firstly, I must thankyou for posting such an interesting thread. I pretty much don't know one end of a boiler or steam engine from the other BUT your work in this area and posts like this just constantly intrigue me and grow my interest in such an elegant piece of history.

I would love to have been present when the ol' girl was fired up for the first time in 70 years. It's amazing that apart from those regrettable rust holes, that it passed the hydro after all those years. Just goes to show how things were made back then.

It must have been a massive disappointment to find the cover plate stolen. What sort of a muppet would do such a thing? Surely one would think that a fully working example of a fine machine is far more attractive than just it's cover in a shed! Bastards!

Anyways, well done Phil and others. You guys must be pretty chuffed!

Simon

Originally Posted by simonl

Hi Phil,

Firstly, I must thankyou for posting such an interesting thread. I pretty much don't know one end of a boiler or steam engine from the other BUT your work in this area and posts like this just constantly intrigue me and grow my interest in such an elegant piece of history.

I would love to have been present when the ol' girl was fired up for the first time in 70 years. It's amazing that apart from those regrettable rust holes, that it passed the hydro after all those years. Just goes to show how things were made back then.

It must have been a massive disappointment to find the cover plate stolen. What sort of a muppet would do such a thing? Surely one would think that a fully working example of a fine machine is far more attractive than just it's cover in a shed! Bastards!

Anyways, well done Phil and others. You guys must be pretty chuffed!

Simon

Thanks Simon,
there must be something about steam as at some point it gets into everyones blood, even people who have no interest in it at all. My main interest is in engineering techniques of that era, what those guys could do with the tools they had way back then still amazes me.
I can still remember the first 'fire up', what a day, there was some serious satisfaction going on for all involved and look, 13 years later we couldn't wait to get back. I have a small Weirs pump Like this that I bought in the early nineties that I have been meaning to restore, they were the pump of choice for boiler feed pumps. My intention is to use it to feed water to the Days boiler, assuming they will be doing another run fairly soon instead of waiting another 13 years.
One good thing to come out of all this is that security has been stepped up out there and I would like to take this opportunity to say a big 'thanks' to a 'Parks' employee named Neville who has a crew of young blokes under him that stopped at nothing to make sure we had everything we needed on the day, not to mention the amount of work they did in the lead up. Neville has fallen in love with the site and regularly checks the place over, even in his own time. He was devastated when he found out the cover was missing and I got the feeling he is going to make it a personal mission to try and recover it. Thanks go to Neville and his crew.
If there is another 'Steam up' of the boiler I will put up a post.

Phil

This is a pic of the pump I purchased from Sam Feiglin of Feiglin sawmills in Nunawading Victoria
Thats my son, he is about to turn 26, Gees I'm slack
My Weirs pump.jpg

My mate got as far as 90 percent restoring one of those small ones... got distracted 5years ago!
Intention was to mount it on the porch and run it on air when the door bell was rung. Ah dreams.
AndrewOC

Originally Posted by AndrewOC

My mate got as far as 90 percent restoring one of those small ones... got distracted 5years ago!
Intention was to mount it on the porch and run it on air when the door bell was rung. Ah dreams.
AndrewOC

That's no good at all Andrew. If he ever finishes it and I go to visit, I can see myself ringing his doorbell for 4 hours. Great to hear there is another one out there that missed an appointment with the scrappies torch.

Phil

Hi Phil,

Watching steam driven machinery can be as mesmerising as staring into a camp fire!

So, have you re-built the wiers pump yet? If you are going to have it up and running for the next fire up of the boiler, I assume it does not look like it did in the photo?

How long did/would it take to rebuild it to operational status?

Cheers,

Simon

Dear Phil.

Is restoration of the steam engine on the cards? If yes, will the steam engine be transported to "the hill" or will restoration be undertaken on site?

More info on progress would be appreciated, including the next fire up of the boiler so we can all be there.

Ken

Dear strip teaser with handle bars!

Gives a whole new meaning to the words pole dancing....add the words steamy, hot, fiery and dirty to that and it sounds like a good thing (strictly talking about above the belt here of course)