Sold May 2008 Back to Archive

If Fred Dibnah had made doll's houses, this is the sort of thing I think he'd have come up with - a superb model of a nineteenth century engine and boiler house, based around a vertical engine and generator.

The engine is a Stuart 10V, finely made and fitted with a displacement lubricator and draincocks piped down through the engine room floor to a catch tank beneath. It is coupled to a dynamo which is wired through to a fully-functional switch board on the wall, allowing charging of a large sealed lead-acid battery concealed in a separate compartment access by a door from outside. The layout is wired such that the engine can run all the lights in the building whilst at the same time charging the battery, alternatively for display the battery can run the lights.

The other end of the engine crankshaft is taken through a wall into the boiler house, where is is coupled to a feed pump via a 2:1 reduction gearbox - there is an auxiliary hand pump for the boiler mounted on the floor. A water tank is concealed behind a stone wall beside the copper, water tube boiler, with a removeable top for filling.

There being a fly in every ointment, the previous owner had entrusted the model for sale to a place where some fool dropped something heavy through the roof, shattering two dozen tiles and stoving in a couple of roof timbers - the resulting damage is shown in a couple of the pictures below. The roof is removable (indeed, must be removed for running), there is a flying lead and plug to disconnect power to the ceiling lights.

The builder, after making such a super job of the model, produced a fastidiously detailed twenty-five page operating and maintenance manual covering all aspects of the mechanical and electrical operation. The original drawings for the Stuart 10V engine are included.

The whole thing weighs something around half a hundredweight.