This engine was donated to KSW by the Roots of Motive Power (Willits, CA). We have the opportunity to restore this late 19th century, extremely rare inverted double-simple steam engine. It’s one of our longer term projects. The plan is to use this engine as the basis for a KSW Steam Lorrey, which is still in the planning stages.

Now that we’ve had it on the shop floor, we’ve had a chance to go over this engine in greater detail. Here’s what we know so far, this engine’s a bit of a mystery and it has yet to give up its secrets:

• Misc.: 1880’s? There’s no hint of a builder’s plate.
• Recovered from the ruins of the crude Johnson Sawmill on Valentine Creek at the headwaters of the Big River in Northern California (this mill shutdown around 1920).
• The larger flywheel (six spokes) does not appear to be original, it has a crude collar added so that it fits to the existing shaft and the castings don’t match (both flywheels have curved spokes, but there are variations in style).
• Stephenson Reversing Linkage.
• An amazing amount of punch marks (center punch) and numeric punches on all parts of this unit. For example, a part will have the numeral “3” stamped on it, then three center punch marks (just dots) and perhaps another set of three parallel scratches very close by.
• There are no cylinder drains on the top side of either cylinder but there are drains in the bottoms of both.
• There’s no drain in the steam chest! This is wild, the distance from the bottom ports for the D-valves to the inside bottom of the chest is nearly 2”. So how exactly did they operate this? Did they just let it fill with condensate and cylinder oil?
• The nuts for the steam chest are all rather unique (old world) looking and fitting.
• Bore 7″, Stroke 11″
• The reversing linkage control arm has Babbitt bearings.