Long Forgotten Inventor Remembered

@ArishMell I learned about Peter Vaughan a long time ago and being so busy at the time forgot about him, now having remembered really appreciate his legacy to the world of mechanical engineering, 1794 was a really long time ago when the Industrial revolution was in it's infancy before then it was simply brass bushes used for bearings it was the age of the horse no electricity no really fast moving vehicles on our roads the steam engine was used for pumping water out of collieries all that was to change on the high seas and rail and road my Ancestors at the time owned a Water Mill powered by water grinding wheat into flour and it was all transported on the nearby canal I have looked into my family tree and find this period fascinating.

@senghenydd I may be wrong on dates, but I think the 1790s steam pumping engines were still the Newcomen "Atmospheric" type - they worked but were very inefficient and could drive only reciprocating pumps.

Last century(!) I helped restore a mill to grinding flour again.It was all there but had last been used for cracking grain for animal feeds. Yes, brass bearing liners, and wooden "cogs" - the millwrighting term for the wheel teeth - engaging cast-iron pinions.

Brass and bronze plain bearings are still used. They do have their definite places.

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A while ago I heard an interesting point I'd not previously considered, made by an archaeologist. What is mankind's most significant invention or discovery? Electricity? Plastics? The wheel? Computers? No - the ability to make and control fire, or more precisely, heat! Its original and still vital use was making many more foods possible for us; but otherwise, without heat we could not have anything else. We could not have progressed beyond rough wood and leather work with flint and bone tools.

@ArishMell I'm sure helping out returning an old flour mill to it's former glory has given you a great deal of satisfaction I only wish I could of been part of such a project I've watched a number of water driven Flour Mills shown on television with great interest gears made of wood and lasting fifty or so years in everyday use incredible when you think of it a real skill.

I personally think man's ability to invent is one of his greatest assets.

@senghenydd Thankyou. Yes it was, especially as we had to learn the subject as well, on top of our broader crafts knowledge.

The traditional wheel teeth were of apple, apparently, but that's quite scarce. I don't know what was used there, but they were made specially by a hardwood-kitchens company in the area at the time.

Wood, running against cast-iron, because it cannot produce sparks as might happen if both components were of iron.

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment about the ability to invent.

I think too, that it is a huge and dangerous tragedy for the whole nation that crafts education (even cookery!) has been practically destroyed in so many schools, and Engineering so utterly misunderstood, ignored or misrepresented; simply by a theory - or myth - that all "everyone" employed in future needs only sit at a computer all day, and buy all physical goods from abroad.

@ArishMell Water power was used in those early days to power machines I've always felt we have wasted the resources of our rivers and maybe in the future more water wheels will be seen in our rivers.

You mentioned that Hardwood-Kitchen company I'm sure they knew their business that restored Flour Mill is a testament to their skills.

Necessity is The Mother of Invention we as a human race will develop ways of reducing our carbon emission and eventually slow down climate change on our planet electric cars hydrogen cars and fossil free power is just the start.

Now we've entered the computer age us Brits have abandoned old skills leaving other countries to manufacture Steel and Motor Vehicles our output is going down it's a shame the government has taken the easy road and not supported these industries unemployment is high in some areas instead of supporting those industries they have to support the unemployed.

@senghenydd @senghenydd Rather timely news today then that the Government is taking Sheffield Forgemasters into State ownership (via the MoD) to safeguard its specialist products and skills.

Yet it didn't stop defence company Cobham being sold to America, and it is now trying to buy Ultra Electronics.

Or the Scunthorpe steel plant to China, despite relying on it for the rails for HS2 (a project incidentally, I do oppose on grounds of too much cost and too little need.)

Ye Gods, even the English builder, Sunseeker, of that epitome of the Ever So Rich, the luxury "yacht", is now owned by the Communist, People's Republic of China! It was acquired years ago by a group of Irish money-traders who sold it to a Chinese business a couple of years or so ago.

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I have an engineering text-book published in 1911.

Although dealing very much with steam engines and boilers, the prime-movers of the time, it has a chapter on water-power. Not the traditional water-wheel, but the design principles and calculations for various types of turbines; and for driving anything, not necessarily just alternators. It ends the chapter with the confident assertion that there should be sufficient power in the world's rivers for everyone's needs.

Maybe there was 110 years ago, when incidentally the fears of what became called the "greenhouse effect" of CO2 were first raised though not in this book, but the Edwardian author and his peers could not have foreseen the huge rise in population and its demands over the century.

Similarly the hidden effect of atmospheric pollution could only be based on projections from the world's contemporary coal consumption, so it estimated the danger time starting some 200 years, not 100, in their own future.

Small-scale hydro-electric schemes, really only single-building installations, already exist; using either turbines or Archimedian Screws, and I'm sure these will spread.

Meanwhile a large tidal-flow turbine is being installed off the Orkneys; a submarine version of the wind-turbine I think, but with the advantages of water-flows of predictable times and intensities, and not needing dams. Apparently the UK is among the world's leaders in this, but the politicians seem not to have heard of it.

My brother worked for a while for a company in Scotland that made and installed domestic-sized solar and wind power-plants. I asked him about water-power given that Scotland has plenty of streams. He told me they'd found the planning-permission necessary was so difficult and bureaucratic to obtain, it was not worth the cost and effort!

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The problem with the "Computer Age" is that it has acquired a disproportionate aura of its own importance. We are led to believe that it's all that matters, yet it's not. We still need physical objects and the ability to make them.

On the last day of production in Toyota's plant in Swindon, as the company intends concentrating on battery-cars; and making them in its home country, much closer to its expected main customers.