Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
The Regular Stuff: Chat, Buy, Sell, Off Topic, etc. => General Discussion - Model & Toy Steam Engines – Stirling Cycle – Flame Lickers – Small Antique Originals => Topic started by: Brad on September 14, 2021, 12:52:15 pm
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Rope tensioner. Rope was cheaper than leather belting and didn't have to be re-laced because of stretching. The tensioner could accommodate a lot of stretch. Of course, you needed someone who could make a 10 foot long splice in the rope. A Navy Chief Boatswain's Mate could. One rope drive that I have seen drove a large sawmill in Mississippi. Close to the rope was hanging a wire connected to a cow bell. If the rope started to fray, the frayed piece would hit the wire and ring the bell. Then the Engineer would know there was a problem.
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Is all that complexity simply for belt tension or is it a torque multiplier some how?
Intrigued!
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Thank you, Jim. That was very helpful. I posted the pic of the Rollag rope drive. We used to have a factory here in Milwaukee that had a rope drive that powered all four floors of machinery. A large corliss engine ran the mill, belted to the rope drive with a leather belt. I got to see a sawmill powered by a rope drive in Alabama. It was conventional, with the rope wheel being the twin cylinder engine's flywheel. I have a video of it and have to dig it out to look at it again. Brad
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Here is the scan from the catalog. The engine at Rollag was the inspiration for the Tiny Power model.
None of these engines are mine. I just took pictures of them sometime in the last 20 years. I will have to look through my Rollag Photos and see if I have any pictures of that one.
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Here is the rope drive at the Rollag, MN engine show.
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One you built on the Stuart Turner #9. Is the other an Elmer engine and rope drive? How difficult was it to splice the rope?Yes, I would love to see the catalog write up. I have 3 Tiny Power catalogs but all are too old to have this drive in them. Brad
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I posted them above, I also have a couple of Tiny Power catalogs with a picture and a write up about the rope drive that I can scan if you would like.
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Thank you, I would love to see them. Brad
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I have a few pictures of Rope Drive engines in my archives. I can dig up and post if that would be helpful.
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O-ring material should work well.
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Thank you, Gil. The pictures really help when I recreate the drive. I see that you used round belting instead of twine. How did you glue the ends together? I was thinking of using O-ring material and using the O-ring glue. Brad
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I had one 15 years ago. It was usually built on a Tint Power Ajax engine.
Mine had the more massive Ajax flywheel mounted to a Stuart #9.
I don't have any drawings but I saved photos of it.
Enjoy,
Gil
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I am looking for information, drawings or an example of the rope drive kit for model engines made by Tiny Power, years ago.