Sold March 2020 Back to Archive

A particularly well made Stuart Turner No.8 from a collection of stationary engines that arrived recently in part-exchange for a beautifully made 1 inch scale ME beam engine.

An early example, the slipper crosshead and valve spindle guide indicating a pre-war engine. The spindle guide was deleted on later engines, the crosshead simplified with a trunk guide arrangement on most of their designs post-war.

As it is, the engine has much in common with, and looks much like a scaled down version of, the No.9.

The builder added a good deal of prototypical detail to the standard design, including finely turned main bearing and big end lubricators; split & cottered big end; flywheel and eccentric sheave broached and keyed to crankshaft; double nutted bearing caps and coupled drain cocks.

Paintwork is somewhat tired, the Russian iron cylinder cladding has some light surface corrosion. The engine turns over freely and runs on air.

Mounted on an uninspiring wooden base that looks like it came from MFI and was intended for an engine half as long again - it deserves something better.