The "GEM"marine steam unit

[poodge]

A friend of mine has a very small marine steam engine called "The Gem".It is a wobbler,complete with a little boiler,etc.
He has been unable to get it to run.
I have found out it was made by "Gem Products,model steam and toy manufacturers",of Trowbridge,Wits.
does anyone know these engines,and has any tips on running them.
He has asked me to try,but I thought I'd try and get some more info first,since I'm only a relative beginner in steam myself.
Just as an aside,the price on the box is 48/11.Seems a strange way to put the price,but there you go.
Although I believe the engine to be from the 50's-60's,he bought it about ten years ago on fleabay.
look for ward to hearing from anyone.I'll put up some pics when I've charged the batteries
Hans.

[Stuart Badger]

Hi Hans

the engine is from the early 60s - when I was a 'Saturday boy' at our local model shop we used to sell them. Long. long out of business now. The price of 48/11 is pre decimal ie. forty eight shillings and eleven pence or  about 2.45 pounds sterling - quite expensive for those days! Be VERY careful trying to operate it. As I remember the boilers were brass and after all this time it may well not be steamtight - also I think that the safety valve used a composition washer which had a habit of 'sticking' to the seat preventing its operation!

I'd love to see a photo!
Stuart

[Eddy Matthews]

Ah, the good old days of pre-decimal coinage - a superb system!

We had Pounds, Shillings and Pence....

There were 12 pence in 1 shilling, so of course there were 12 shillings in a pound, right? WRONG! There were 20 shillings in a Pound!

We Brits understood it perfectly, but Johhny Foreigner didn't have a clue, so we could charge them whatever we wanted and get away with it

But just in case that didn't confuse our foreign visitors enough, we also had things such as the Florin (2 shillings), the Half Crown (2 shillings and 6 pence), the Crown (5 shillings), the Tanner (6 pence), the Halfpenny (1/2 penny), the Farthing (1/4 penny), the Guinea (21 shillings), etc etc.

Regards
Eddy

[mjt60a]

I remember those days! I never had any trouble with the 'old' money or with decimal, it was really quite simple, the pound was still the pound. there were 20 shillings in a pound and there were 20 'five pences' in a new pound, the 5 pence coin still looked like a shilling and the ten looked like a 2 shilling piece. The '10 bob note' became the 50p coin but it was quite distinctive in shape so no real danger of mistaking it for a 10p. The only 'problem' was with the small change as anything costing a something-and-a-halfpenny got rounded up to the nearest 1/2p so some prices had to increase.....

[Peter Webster]

Eddy,
        Us foreigners down here in the great land of OZ had an almost identical system before this bloody expensive decimal system now bankrupting everyone. One difference was the threepence which we called a "tray bit", don't ask me why, maybe Derek knows the reason
Peter W 

[Eddy Matthews]

You aren't foreigners down there Peter - Just relocated Brits!

Eddy

[derekwarner_decoy]

Sorry Peter......  ...the other one I remember was the coin called "Bakers Token"....it was a bout the size of a one shilling coin....but the center section was stamped out...a bit like a wheel.....& instead of giving coins to the baker...one exchanged one token for a loaf

1) mind you....the bakers cart was hauled by a horse & to keep the horse happy it had a charf bag around its neck & seemed to munch on the charf continually
2) mind you ...all of this was seen through the eyes of a very young person  ....Derek

[poodge]

It just seemed an odd way to describe the price.I would have expected L2/8/11.(sorry,don't know where to find a "pound"sign).
Or 2 guineas,six and eleven
Anyway,back to the engine.Here are the pics I took:




Thanks for the info,Stuart,I'll make sure I check the safety valve before I do anything else.

[poodge]

Well,I had a wee play this afternoon,and have to say it was not a thundering success
I took the safety valve out,and gave it a scrub with an old toothbrush.It operated quite freely,so tried to fill the boiler with water.But due to the size of the funnel,and the narrow opening,it kept air-locking,so the water would run down the side,instead of into it's rightful place.
In the end i used an ink refill syringe with a long needle,which filled the boiler to it's measured capacity,around35ml.It did come in to steam within 5 minutes,but the engine could not be pursuaded to run continuously,just made half a turn and stopped.
The safety valve seemed to be blowing continuously,so i held it down briefly with pliers,and this would make the engine run after a swing on the flywheel.Don't worry,I only held it down for a couple of seconds.
It kept running for about 30 seconds,and then appeared to run out of steam.I let it cool down,and made a close inspection of everything.The boiler appeared to be good,but i discovered some plonker had painted the port face on the cylinder.This could very well be the whole problem with this engine,so I'll clean off the paint tomorrow,and have another go at it.
I'm wondering if the burner was actually not the original,as it ran for no more than 10 minutes on a fill of methylated spirits.The instructions suggest it should run for 25-30 minutes.Unless that was a lack of truth in advertising
Isn't this fun?

[logoman]

great little engine! sounds like it should be ok once the port face is stripped and perhaps lapped.