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Peake N° 3 is a particularly unique steam engine owing to its use of the Sun & Planet Gear, a mechanism which has a rather intriguing history. Boulton & Watt (James Watt being the pioneer of the modern steam engine and Boulton being his partner), were planning to employ the crank to convert the motion of the piston into rotary motion. Unfortunately this idea was revealed by a somewhat loose employee at a pub one evening and was subsequently patented by another party. Boulton and Watt were therefore forced to find another mechanism to perform the role of a crank. William Murdoch, a trusted and very talented employee of their firm came up with a suitable design - the Sun & Planet Gear. It was patented in 1781. The Sun & Planet Gear performs very well and has the curious property of rotating the flywheel twice for every cycle (if the number of teeth on each gear is equal). This in turn means that the flywheel need have only half the mass moment of inertia when compared with a standard engine configuration. Peake N° 3 is a beautiful engine with many attractive features; an integral name plate with the serial number of the engine, a base made from the rare and highly prized Australian Silver Oak, a crankshaft oiler with a new and improved cap, a convex flat belt pulley and an oscillating cylinder (also invented by Murdoch and Watt). It has been tested on air and steam. AU$239 Specifications Bore: 8mm (5/16'') Stroke: 23.5mm (0.925'') Base: 90 x 52mm (3.5 x 2'') Height: 82mm (3.2'') Flywheel Diameter: 47mm (1.85'') Number of Gear Teeth: 24 AU$239
 peake-engines@hotmail.com |
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