ENGINEERING APPRENTICE DAYS 1




I commenced serving an apprenticeship in the engineering trade in 1935. The works repaired factory steam boilers, serviced the few of the remaining steam engines and repaired some local council road roller boilers. Gas and electric welding and turning and fitting were the main stays of the business. Dairy factory and freezing works machinery installation and maintenance were ongoing services.

My first introduction to steam action in the plant was to dismantle and smash up two in stock “Shand” single cylinder horizontal engines that had never turned a flywheel. Electricity reticulation had taken over and the scrap metal dealers collected.

Some months later the next meeting with steam was with one of the city council road rollers that had been the object of my schoolboy interest as it ploughed up old street gravel and tar bases in preparation for reforming and resurfacing. The execution of this process was about the ultimate in graunching. The steam roller, no light weight puffed and jerked mightily. A wondrous sight for a small boy! But as I was to learn the operation repeated over time found relatively weak points in the boiler structure, namely the firebox wrapper front corners which developed cracks where the side sheets formed into the throat plate. Thus, the machine was steamed into the blacksmith’s shop and the trouble spots exposed and the cracks chiselled out and electric welded. Some water-leg stays in the regions also had to be replaced. For this memorable piece of work I had to crouch inside the fire-box and hold a steel dolly against the stays that were being hammered and headed from the outside. I now wear hearing aids, I wonder if that was the start of the defect.

My home town had a wool processing, dying, spinning and knitting mill. In its wool dying section was a large steam driven centrifuge dryer. It was mounted on a short vertical shaft with a crank beneath that rotated in a horizontal plain. The single double acting cylinder with its crosshead and connecting rod and valve eccentric rod were normally covered by a checker plate floor. The slide valve and seating had worn, so it was our job to remove the steam chest cover, remove the valve for refacing and lap the port surface. I worked with the works foreman on this job which finally finished and assembled he cautiously opened up the steam supply and spun the bowl up to what we thought to be its operating speed. The dye-works foreman came on the scene to observe progress and spun the stop valve wide open whereon the whole thing tore into life with the giant bowl howling and the crankshaft vanishing into a blur. We took a quick look for an escape route, but that was the norm and all was well.

Being the new apprentice part of my regular job on Monday mornings was to oil the overhead main and counter-shaft bearings. There were wooden plank cat-walks with no hand rails above the shafts and bearings and because of the height above the floor and the whirling pulleys beneath me I would gingerly crawl from point to point much to the amusement of the old hands. But I became accustomed to the height and underfoot action to eventually sprint through the maze with the best of them.

Friday afternoons were sweep-up days and of course this was again my regular job. This involved tools of the trade, bristle broom, shovel and wheelbarrow. This latter is the point of this diversion away from steam engines. The only part of the barrow that was genuine barrow was the iron wheel. The rest was made from old ¾” inch pipe and the body consisted of a 44 gallon drum cut in half along its length and the resulting semi-cylinder mounted on the frame with much of its length ahead of the wheel. Thus, the wheel carried most of the load and the centre of gravity of the whole assembly was very high. Rare were the times when I made it to the out-door dump site without the outfit taking charge and doing a preview dump. Rather later in a works where I was employed they had created their wheelbarrow a little differently. In this mark 2 version a 44 gallon drum was cut about a third of its height around its circumference and secured on a frame well back from the wheel, in fact so far back that one felt that one was doing all of the work and personally carrying everything except the wheel.