The Kent History Forum

Industry => Engineering Works and Factories => Topic started by: Smiffy on January 07, 2020, 08:42:27 PM

Title: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Smiffy on January 07, 2020, 08:42:27 PM
Restoration of an Aveling and Porter steam roller:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd1RWNnhG1w
 
 :) :) :)
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: castle261 on January 08, 2020, 07:21:13 PM
I used to see a similar steamroller digging up my road in the 1936 - the only item not shown is
the three diggers on the end of the roller. It stopped one morning right outside our house, and us lads gathered round the lamp post outside. As it was working up hill, a workman let down the
diggers by a screw type wheel. Crunch, they dug out the tared road, then a man with shovel
lifted it all up, into a waiting lorry. That was digging a trench for the main drainage - 1936 style.


                                                     That was an Aveling & Porter too
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: DaveTheTrain on January 08, 2020, 07:49:28 PM
Those tines or digging pins are part of a heavy device called a Scarifier.  The tines were wound down by a heavy iron handle on the offside road wheel, or roll.  Rolling on a hill was/is potentially risky due to the risk of a runaway, whereby the roller slides on the metal roll against the hard, slippery road surface.  Scarifying certainly would habe held them back. 

Avelings used to supply their own, or customers could order their Scrarifiers from two companies, either Price or Morrison and have them fitted by Aveling.


A typical scarified is shown here:




https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1899TETv2-pm010.jpg (https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1899TETv2-pm010.jpg)


DTT
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: MartinR on January 09, 2020, 09:21:08 AM
(OT)The late lamented Fred Dibnah used to tell a hilarious tale about rollers and hills in his stage show "An Evening with Fred Dibnah".  He had used his roller with a trailer to go and collect some stone chimney "pots" from a location up a hill.  As he was returning downhill he noticed that "we were no longer on a roller, but on a sledge"!  At the foot of the hill was a sharp turn, the roller continued on through a field gate and embedded itself in the field snapping off the front roller as it did so.  A man from a local cottage appeared and asked Fred if he could take photos which Fred permitted with the proviso that he could have some prints.  A while later Fred went to the house and announced himself as "that pratt that parked a roller in your field".  The man replied that he was "that pratt that left the lens cap on"!
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: castle261 on January 22, 2020, 06:46:11 PM
You can see the type of Aveling & Porter road roller, in the Brook at Chatham, next to the car park.
This is the type I saw, in 1936. The Scarifier, with the 3 Tines were placed at angle 11 to 5 (hours)
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: DaveTheTrain on January 22, 2020, 07:10:16 PM
Ah, now the one at the Brook is a 1925 Q Type Diesel Roller.  It does look very steam like but was heavy oil.


It is started on air to save swinging it over.  It originally sat in a rec at the bottom of Darnley Road, Strood until 1989.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: castle261 on January 27, 2020, 02:14:59 AM
I stand- to be corrected - DTT -  I remember a steam roller in Darnley Road.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Smiffy on December 15, 2020, 03:44:56 PM

A cutting from Meccano magazine dated February 1961 featuring an Aveling & Porter roller that served the people of Oslo for 82 years!

Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: castle261 on December 30, 2020, 10:45:20 AM
We had one of those Aveling & Porter Steam Engines - digging up the road - right outside our house
in 1938 - I went out to watch the man - putting the three spikes down - by a wheel - then the driver dug a trench - What for - Gas or main drainage - I expect.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Colin walsh on January 03, 2021, 09:35:20 PM
Just a point of interest,ref Aveling&Porter,my uncle on my mothers side,One Bert Newman ,was a senior design draftsman at there Srtood works for many years.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: DaveTheTrain on January 05, 2021, 02:16:01 PM
I recall posting these in the old forum, so will post again here.  Pics of the old works from contemporary catalogues I own.  They make interesting viewing of the practices of the time.


Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Dave Smith on January 06, 2021, 11:03:59 AM
DaveTT. Interesting heavy machinery workshops,not much room "to swing a cat"! Did they also have a foundry or were castings supplied from elsewhere? Of course, the very large lathes would have been necessary for ensuring the wheels & rollers were circular. Where exactly was A&P's large factory in Strood please?
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: DaveTheTrain on January 06, 2021, 02:49:02 PM
Hi Dave,


Yes, Avelings did have their own foundry.  There is a nice picture of it here:


https://apps.medway.gov.uk/apps/medwayimages/details.asp?pga=21&searchtype=all&search=aveling&pg=4 (https://apps.medway.gov.uk/apps/medwayimages/details.asp?pga=21&searchtype=all&search=aveling&pg=4)


In this image they would seem to be casting rear axle brakes.  They are pretty large. 


In the images I posted in image 1 you can see the rivets being squeezed by a large horseshoe shaped rivet squeezer hung over the firebox of a boiler.  This was a much quieter process than hitting the rivets up with hammers which was terribly noisy.  Some would still be done with guns but pretty limited.  In the drop forge shop in the image below I cannot see anything I recognise.


In the second uploaded file I can see in the machine shop, gears and rear axle boxes.  I recognise these from my engine.  They are laying on the floor and about 8inches wide by 15 inches long with a hole in for the axle, with a Bronze bearing pushed in.    The star shaped item is a rear wheel centre what would be bolted or rivetted to a back wheel.


The final upload of the stores is interesting in what it shows.  There is a final drive gear leaning against the racks.  Also more axle boxes and gears and brake drums.


There guys working in the stores must have been strong as some of that stuff is unliftable for me.  I can see only one pole crane at the far end of the stores.
DTT







Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Cosmo Smallpiece on January 06, 2021, 09:11:28 PM
Dave Smith - The Strood civic centre building was Aveling and Porter's offices. I understand they stretched along the esplanade behind there. When I was last that way it was the big B&Q car park. I've no idea of the total extent of their site.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: pete.mason on January 06, 2021, 10:36:21 PM
invicta Works outlined in red. Didn't wingets occupy part of the site? Was that post A&P or a subsidiary?
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Longpockets on January 07, 2021, 09:51:32 AM
When I was last that way it was the big B&Q car park.


I think B&Q was the other side of the railway line, within the area of Commercial Road and Knight Road.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: MartinR on January 07, 2021, 10:24:04 AM
You're right Longpockets.  B&Q was in the retail park, where B&M, Starbucks and the gym are now.  The Aveling & Porter site was the large car park outside the old archive centre.  Recently the council seem to have been dumping spoil there, I'm not sure what they are up to but the whole area is liable to subsidence since A&P reclaimed it from the river mud.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: DaveTheTrain on January 07, 2021, 11:07:19 AM
Wingets was a separate private, and later publicly listed company.   Later photos of the Wingets foundry show the old A&P foundry. 
It occupied the site from 1953 (I believe) after Aveling and Porter transferred its business operations to Grantham in 1934.  A&P became Aveling Barford.  That is a complex story of industrial combines and mismanagement that is well described elsewhere.
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: Cosmo Smallpiece on January 07, 2021, 01:57:30 PM
I thought B&Q were no longer there, but could not recall what had replaced them. Aveling & Porter went on to extend west of the railway onto that plot. I believe Pelican Foundary and Collis & Stace were over that side?
Title: Re: Aveling & Porter
Post by: MartinR on January 07, 2021, 02:51:39 PM
Yes, you're right, I had forgotten about the expansion into Pelican Yard.  I can't find my copies of the Preston books, but there is a description at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aveling_and_Porter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aveling_and_Porter)
Here's an example of their work culled from Smith's 1928 "A History of Rochester":