Golding Pearl steam fitting

Golding offered a steam fitting which as far as I know was just a pulley wheel that goes on the main shaft next to the fly wheel and is connected to a steam driven shaft by a belt.
With a press connected to the steam drive shaft how would a printer have stopped and started the press? Was there some mechanism in the loop that allowed the belt to slip so a press could be stopped?

Log in to reply   6 replies so far

Hi,
On presses over in the UK the drive belt has two wheels. A lever on the press with a sort of set of forks pushes the belt from the drive belt to a free wheel which obviously removes ‘drive’ from the press. Not sure how Golding undertook this. That said after so many presses were converted to electric power its amazing that so many were left with their original steam (or line shaft) driving gear intact.
I went to a print shop once where the steam engine was replaced with a large electric motor. This motor drove all of the print shop equipment via various shafts and belts. All the machines had the freewheel system, indeed some of the presses could have the belt pushed over on the line shaft in the same way.

Thats correct in the uk a double pulley shaft with one freewheeling pulley aside to a drive pulley and the system crudely required a belt shift fork force the belt onto the driving pulley , they changed it slightly to a system where you had movement in the shaft that allowed the shaft to drift side ways until a cone or dog engaged the freewheel pulley to the drive primary pulley . I am not sure when they bought the vee pulley into machine drives but i guess the steam drives hung around on machines becaue the flat belt drive was as easy to keep and flat belt was already there so it carried on and because that was what the machine required without further design change ?
There are still a few mchines that have those fittings in industry ,especially woodworking .

US design for belt driven equipment pretty much is the same as in the UK. Rare to find a press with all the steam fittings intact. Belt shifter levers and forks are the rarest parts to find—though replication would not be too difficult.

Golding didn’t reinvent the wheel either. It is the two pulley (flat belt) system described

JF.

Golding presses fitted for steam had what they called a “belt-shifter” which moved the overhead power transmission belt from the drive wheel to an idler wheel. That cut off power to the press. At least that’s how I understand the system - but I’m no engineer.
-Steve

to Stephen O. Saxe and others

A commercial printery in my home town drove most/all of its presses from a line shaft, which was about a foot above floor. The owner’s daughter was standing near the shaft when she suddenly bent her knees, then stood up without her dress. Uninjured, but shocked.

Where I worked (morning newspaper) the commercial print section had its line shaft near the ceiling. This was possibly from the days (pre 1926) when the prime mover used a form of coke gas as fuel for the engine.

Alan.