The Engine
Category: Engineering
The Engineer
Photographs, Video and Stuff
The Springs
Photographs, Video and Stuff
Join me for my rather warped idea of what it would sound like if you were sitting in the middle of an internal combustion engine. Best with headphones on….
All done on my Machine Mikro.
Compared to most, this trawler is one of the smallest I have seen on the slipway at Macduff Harbour.
Monkey Island: According to this theory, some people believe that as the monkey island was located at the top of the main mast of sailing ships, sailors had to scramble up the ship’s rigging to free or repair the sails and rigging or to keep a lookout for icebergs , reefs, or land. Because the sailors had to climb as the monkeys do, this topmost place was termed as Monkey Island.
A WW2 Enigma Machine used for encoding and decoding secret messages…
You can’t beat having your bottom scraped…
The Voe Jarl is back in the harbour at Macduff
The Voe Jarl Returns – Richard Broom Photography
A cross between a barge, a tug and a dive-support vessel. The C-Fenna is currently helping to connect offshore wind turbine cables to a shore station close to Banff, Scotland. The wind turbine are way out there in the Moray Firth.
You just can’t beat having a new coat of paint on your bottom…
The Slipway at Macduff is open again…
The action end of a modern trawler…
All quiet and peaceful at MacDuff…
I have no idea what it is but it has seen better days (a bit like me really!)
(AKA a port hole)
In case you are wondering, these ‘wheels’ stop a fishing boat’s trawl net getting caught on rocks on the sea bed.
Cranes, these days, controlled from a radio-control box. Clever stuff!
Don’t forget to lubricate your parts…
After this posting, there was some debate about where the front wheels for this crane truck were. This image solves the mystery. The front wheels are set back and, in front of the front wheel assembly, there are the extendable jacks which keep the truck from tipping over when the crane part of the truck is lifting heavy weights.
I’m sure they’re used for something…
We all need something to stop us drifting away…
A wheel that carries a considerable amount of weight.
Do you ever take a photograph which is terrible, breaks all the rules, and yet you still like it? Here’s an image, shot into sun, badly composed, loads of lens flare, cluttered, lots of grain and probably not entirely in focus but, who cares. There’s no such thing as a bad image!! Maybe this will be the moneymaker!
I can’t remember the last time I used one of these (and this one looks as though it hasn’t been used in a while…)
Please see last post
Doesn’t everyone want a mobile shed? This shed is high above the slipway (next post) at MacDuff Harbour and it is where the chap who controls the winches stands when the pull a boat up the slipway.
Please see the next post
Electricity…we really do take it for granted these days but, distributing electricity to all parts is a complex business…
Every home should have one!
In today’s plastic and electronic world, we often seem to lose sight of how important engineering skills are to us. And, we especially lose sight of how important solid engineering training is. We certainly don’t always seem to make things like we used to. Perhaps it is because our politicians mostly read PPE at Oxford or are former lawyers. They wouldn’t know a spanner if it hit them on the head! That leads me to ask the question…what exactly are our politicians good for? Answer (as in the song): ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
The radiator grille must have been inspired by honeycomb made by bees?
See a larger version of the image here.
These great big lumps of metal are towed behind trawlers. Their aquadynamic shape help to keep the ‘mouth’ of the trawl net open (a bit like wings flying through the water) and the hapless fish are caught in the net, never to escape.
The Bulbous Forefoot or, Bulbous Bow, greatly increases fuel efficiency and the fins help with stability. More about this technology (an American invention) here. The ‘snoot’ shown below belongs to a trawler but most ships are built with bulbous bows these days.
A boat on the slip at MacDuff Harbour
The fishing vessel Lilly Oak sits on her cradle on the slip at MacDuff Harbour, Scotland. The slip is a long sloping concrete ramp (image coming soon) used to haul boats out of the water for repair and repainting. The cradle that supports the ships runs on railway lines on the slip.
See a larger version of this image here.
If you visit the United Kingdom and see a post box (like the one below) with ‘GR’ on the front, this means that the postbox was installed during the reign of King George V (1910-1936). In those days we British folk used to build thing that would last for a long time. The ‘G’ stands for George of course and the ‘R’ stands for Rex (Latin for King).
The post box below is still very much in service and it is located near to Banff High Street and long may it remain there. Let’s hope this post box and many other things can survive the complete pillock who is currently living at No 10 Downing Street.
They just don’t make ’em like they used to…
Without John Harrison’s clocks we would have been, quite literally, lost at sea. Nobody could underestimate the importance and brilliance of John Harrison’s clocks (or marine chronometers as we know them these days).
I satisfied a long-held ambition this morning when I went to see John Harrison’s beautifully made (and priceless) clocks at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. All the clocks Harrison designed and built are still working just fine……ticking away happily in glass display cages in a quiet corner of the observatory.
And, John Harrison (1693 – 1776) was a son of Lincolnshire. So am I but I have yet to knock out a clock or two!
Amsterdam public transport – second to none! I just love riding on the trams.
The T1154 transmitter and the R1155 receiver were the first radios I used to transmit and receive signals (in my teens in the 1960s). These transmitters and receivers were used in Royal Air Force heavy bombers and other aircraft during World War 2. These transmitters and receivers used Morse code and the morse code signal used to ‘chirp’ (sounded a bit like a demented bird on drugs!). Some ‘chirping’ Morse code here.
There was a time when aircraft flew without the aid of computers….
The drainage canals – where else but the Netherlands…
The Canals
