Talk:Watt steam engine

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Very old comment[edit]

Isn't Watt steam engine steam engine? If so, why did you delete see also? Taku 03:32 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

References needed[edit]

The article is looking good, although a few more images wouldn't go amiss. (For example, Crofton? a rotative beam engine?)

However, the main problem is that it is currently devoid of references.

EdJogg 00:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The engine at the Powerhouse Museum is marked Boulton and Watt Engine #1. I read in an Aus newspaper (not really suitable as a ref, just toilet paper) that it was the first engine off the production line. It was used in a brewery from 1799 to 1899. A Sydney collector made the trip to London to purchase the engine, outbidding the local scrap iron dealers at the auction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.33.246.3 (talk) 01:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Latest edit summary[edit]

I like the spelling of "grammar".--John of Paris (talk) 18:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Size?[edit]

Can anyone include details as to the size of the Watt engine? The pictures give you some idea, but there isn't much to scale it against. Thanks - TheMightyQuill (talk) 00:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is like asking, "How long is a piece of string?". A large pumping engine would be houses in an engine house, large enough to convert into a substantial dwelling, with the beam coming out through a high window, using the wall as a pivot. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:52, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the OP is quite right -- the article gives no idea how big the engines were. The original beam pumping engines were extremely large, but later rotative engines were much smaller. None of the current pictures, good as they are, really gives an idea of scale.

EdJogg (talk) 09:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pieces of string are not at all limited in their size. From what I understand, the reason steam engines were not used to make steamboats or trains for quite some time after their invention, was that they were too large. Is this incorrect? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 15:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Size is very important, _especially_ for pre-Watt engines. As with so many things, Newtonian mechanics just doesn't scale linearly with size and there's often a 3/2 power rule becoming important, because of volume/area ratios. When Watt was given that famous small demonstration model engine to fix it wasn't "broken", it just didn't work and hadn't ever worked well. There's a limit to how small you can make a model of a Newcomen engine: if the piston area becomes too small in relation to the cylinder volume, they're no longer efficient enough to function. Watt's separate condenser was a reasoned solution to initially just the problem of getting this small model to work, but he soon realised the additional benefits of it and applied it to full-size engines. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:44, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found a picture (showing Watt's linkage) which shows a 'small' beam engine (compare size of the ladder in the background). Don't know if the engine is specificaly a Watt's, or a later type. This picture clearly shows the scale of a moderately large beam engine. (This one is of a much later type, a Woolf compound rotative.)

Large pumping engines, such as those at Kew Bridge and Crofton, would typically occupy three floors within a specially constructed building. The top ('beam') floor is at the same level as the main bearings for the beam. The middle floor has the cylinder, valve gear and controls; and the bottom floor is for the pumps, condenser, etc.

Later engines, such as the rotative type shown at the start of the article, were rather smaller (down to a minimum height of about 8 feet?)

EdJogg (talk) 01:44, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ting Tang Mine[edit]

Maybe means Ding Dong mine? --BjKa (talk) 10:25, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it means Ting Tang mine (possibly Tingtang). Much as the Chacewater mine was at Chacewater (or Wheal Busy), not Chasewater.

Ting Tang was a fairly early engine (1777) and was just East of Redruth, towards Chacewater. Ding Dong is West of Penzance - nearly 20 miles away and 20 years later. Ding Dong is well known because of the court case involving Bull, an attempt by Cornish mine adventurers (not Bull, he couldn't afford courts) to defeat Watt's patent and thus save them all some licence fees. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First practical or first general purpose engine[edit]

Watt's was not the first practical engine. Newcomen's engine was practical and had been in use in mines for over 50 years before Watt produced his first engine. Newcomen's engine was best suited for pumping mines because that is where waste coal was available and the weight of the plunger rod returned the piston to the top of the cylinder for the next cycle. Watt's engine was more efficient and was capable of rotary motion, aided by a double acting cylinder that completed the cycle. Rotary motion and better efficiency allowed it to be used for applications other than pumping. In technical terms that would be a "general purpose" engine, borrowing the term from economic historians.Phmoreno (talk) 03:01, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide a citation from a reliable source to support your contention. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:10, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For example see: General purpose technology Phmoreno (talk) 04:22, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is "Watt's engine"? (A long issue on this page, there's no such thing as a single design). Watt made a series of incremental improvements, not one single design. So if "Watt's engine" is Old Bess then that's an improved Newcomen engine, still only usable for pumping, and clearly not "the first" anything (no matter what the definition of "practical") because it's merely an improvement on what went before, carrying out just the same tasks. If "Watt's engine" is the Whitbread Engine or the Lap Engine, then that's a different matter because these were now rotative and had more of a claim to being a "general purpose" engine (as Boulton was selling them), and able to do new tasks.

Both "first practical" and "first general purpose" are misleadingly wrong. "Practical" because they're not the first (Newcomen was) and "general purpose" is wrong because Watt's first engines were no more general than others, and less general than his later rotative engines. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:29, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Would this make a better first sentence to avoid the practical/general discussion:"A Watt steam engine~~, alternatively known as a Boulton and Watt steam engine,~~ was one of a series of incremental improvements that James Watt applied to the original Newcomen engine. Later versions were more compact and could be rotative, thus becoming one of the driving forces of the industrial revolution". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:44, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:TNT, IMHO.

Certainly I think this whole article ought to go, under this title at least. We could rename and restructure it as "Watt's development of the steam engine" or "History of Watt steam engines", but the basic notion of there existing "a single concept of a Watt steam engine" is just wrong.

I'm also wary of calling anything a "Boulton and Watt engine", as Boulton had so little technical input to them. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:48, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Watt steam engine was split off from Steam engine. Maybe it would be best to move it back.Phmoreno (talk) 14:00, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]