[Gasification] PRECIR STIRLING ENGINES

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Bill

"Little Tommy" could have been  Thomas Savery, born 1650, who invented 
the Steam Engine,
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blsavery1.htm

or perhaps Thomas Newcomen, born in 1663, who improved on it,
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6914/newcome.htm

"Little Jimmy" was a "Johnny Come Lately", but his strong patents, 
clever commercial agreement, and litigeous nature made him wealthy.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6914/watte.htm

One of the forgotten Giants of Steam was Richard Trevithick...
http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/trevithicko.htm

Watt gave Richard a lot of grief.

Kevin


Bill Klein wrote:
> Dear Tom: 
>
> I believe "little Tommy", born in 1736, had an alias: Jimmy, but he still played with his mother's tea kettle and eventually raced one of his steam engine propelled boats here, in Vermont. It sunk, but his legacy lives on. 
>
> I hope all is well with you. At the present rate of snowfall, we might catch up with Colorado. 
>
> My very best regards! 
>
> Bill Klein     
> JAMES WATT, the grandson of a teacher of mathematics, and the son of a shipwright merchant of Greenock, was born in 1736. On the advice of a Glasgow Professor, he was sent to London in 1755 to be apprenticed to a mathematical instrument maker.1 However, on arriving in London he discovered that the seven years' apprenticeship rule of the gild was largely insisted upon, and it was only with difficulty that he could find any one who would take him for so short a time as a year This was finally arranged, and a Mr. Morgan was to give him a year's instruction for twenty guineas. 2 
>
> His stay in London was characterized by great frugality and occasional fears of the press-gang In a letter to his father, he writes: " They now press anybody they can get, landsmen as well as seamen, except it be in the liberties of the city, where they are obliged to carry them before my Lord Mayor first; and, unless one be either a Prentice or a creditable tradesman, there is scarce any getting off again, and if I was carried before my Lord Mayor, I durst not avow that I wrought in the City, it being against their laws for any unfreeman to work, even as a journeyman, within the liberties."3 
>
> When Watt had completed his training,
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Thomas Reed" <tombreed at comcast.net>
> To: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>; "GASIFICATION" <GASIFICATION at listserv.repp.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:00 AM
> Subject: [Gasification] PRECIR STIRLING ENGINES
>
>
> Dear Tom Miles and All:
>
> In the beginning was little Tommy Watt and his mother's kettle.  This 
> generated the idea that steam from an externally heated boiler could 
> apply pressure to a piston, and the age of steam was born and the Kelvin 
> cycle is still used for boiler-steam power. 
>
> Then came Mr. Stirling who wondered if yu could use gas as the pressure 
> element and he invented the Stirling engine which works - sort of.
>
> Then came Dr. Otto who wondered if you couldn't actually burn a clean 
> fuel INSIDE the piston/cylinder and thus was born the internal 
> combustion spark ignited engine.
>
> Then came Rudolph Diesel who thought that with sufficient compression of 
> air and injection of the fuel that you could burn almost anything inside 
> the cylinder.  Mr. Diesel even ran on powdered coal. 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> There are still people who think that the advantage of *external* 
> combustion of ??? can compete with the *internal* combustion of prepared 
> fuels inside the cylinder/piston.  The first thing they want to buy is a 
> propane torch or woodgas generator to supply the controlled amount of 
> heat.  I fear they are dilusional.
>
> TOM REED  
>
> BEF/BEC
> _______________________________________________
> Gasification mailing list
> Gasification at listserv.repp.org
> http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org
> http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
> _______________________________________________
> Gasification mailing list
> Gasification at listserv.repp.org
> http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org
> http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
>
>