General Gordon Ferry

[Robert Hornby]

The town I live in, Terrigal - NSW Australia, had a busy boat building industry in the later half of the 1800's. She was a stern drive paddle steamer ferry built specifically to run across the Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney. I am proposing to build a working model of just her engine room and paddle, or at least what I think it may have been like as I have not found any photos of the room, (there most probably are none). I have drawn up a sketch of my idea and request any comments as to how close or otherwise it may be. The paddle seems to be a bit narrow compared to the hull beam but as there is a fair bit of "stuff" each side of the wheel and I am guessing there has to be some space between the engines and the hull sides i cannot see how I can change this.
Over to you guys.
Robert

[Robert Hornby]

I have been giving more thought on the paddle wheel width and come up with the idea of offsetting each of the the cross head slides by 7mm to bring the wheel to 106mm wide which looks more in proportion to the hull width.
Robert

[Robert Hornby]

I have made a start on the engines having made the cylinders and valve block and silver soldered them together. The cylinder support brackets were next and a fair bit of work needed in these. I utilised my home made rotary table to radius the ends to match up with the cylinder flanges at 27mm dia. A start has been made on the fixing bolt holes between the bracket and cylinder, they will be fitted with 8 BA studs and nuts.
I have made some more amendments to the drawing to show the valve drive rod offset system and some minor changes around the engine bases.
Robert

[kno3]

Very nice.  Have you considered building the entire ship, not just the engine room? Would make a great working model.

[Robert Hornby]

I have been extremely slack in not posting any progress with the General Gordon Ferry engine room. Well I have progressed and managed to get he two engines about half built with the cross heads under way.
Robert