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More Steam

JANUARY 4, 2012
Harbor Tub (nicknamed the Iron Fish) An all iron costal tugboat, considered extremely heavy and slow to come about. A coal-burning monster propelled by two side paddle wheels she could do foutreen knots in light winds. Built sometime before the American Civil War, by an unknown British naval engineer.After several sea trials were conducted of this strange ship the poor results canceled out any production plans.
Sketches are always key to getting the image to the paper
Working out the Diver composition on a small scale with pencil and paper
Going Deeper What is the hook in off shore British Natural Gas exploration?
Doodles for the mechnenical manufacturing idea
Old Rusty the shift from old school manufacturing of brick and mortar factories to the new digital age and cloud technology and beyond.
The Race is on, how is your 401 running? Steaming towards mid 2012
The Steam Pistol of 1898 several sketches were needed to flesh out the composition and the idea
The Popper Pneumatic Side Arm (electric pop gun) Designed for the British underground transit police the Popper as it was nick named was an electrically fired compressed air gun designed for short-range use. Wanting to avoid a spark and possible fire this weapon was heralded with much anticipation. Elegant in design however it failed to live up to its promised promotional expectations. Plagued by miss fires its French designer finally pulled it from London’s weapon competition of 1898
Speed Locomotion 404 A very early attempt at a steam propelled coal fired piston driven steam racecar. Vibration was a big problem as well as the ability to throttle the steam, the car proved slow to gain speed and it was also very hard to stop once the steam was on full boil. Although tested several times in Detroit area during1908 as an innovative new race machine the design never quiet lived up to the hopes of the designers.
Having great fun these days this is reminiscent of the many etchings I did in the seventies and eighties in terms of imagery that I am exploring once again.
Speed tests of old number twelve an earth skaking war horse of a machine.
The Vickers Victoria Hydroplane 1908 A steam propelled racing hydroplane, she did very well in her off shore steam tests. In the best of three runs she averaged 32 knots with her twin boilers on full boil. The Vickers had twin cast boilers and at low speed would produce thick white smoke when on full boil her twin pipes would give off copious amounts of thick black coal fired smoke. Her major flaw was that she was top heavy, and had to slow down in a turn. To compensate for this she was outfitted with twin outriggers, which added to her overall stability and increased her overall performance. An all-hard wood deck, with a cast iron twin hull she was a true work post Victorian of nautical art. She competed in several British off shore coastal races and captured the commanders cup three times.
Sketches for the great space cannon, the idea for this came during the recent Sherlock Homes movie
The Krupp’s Space Cannon 1898 Born of the industrial arms race just prior to world war one by the Krupps’s Armaments Company, The Space cannon was based on a German seize gun this was a one of a kind giant motor. The massive gun had a discharge angle of ninety degrees; the capsule was lowered by crane into its massive bore. A power charge then propelled the capsule twenty four miles straight up, at that point the capsule itself fired a small charged rocket pushing it still futher an eventfully in to outer space.
Poster currently on press for some up coming events
© 2024 Chris Spollen