engine+maker

MECH ENG, PROD person constructor de máquinas m

Flugmotorenhersteller m.

1

2 n

AIR TRANSP, AUTO, MECH, MECH ENG, VEH motor m

WATER TRANSP motor m, máquina f

•

- aircraft maker

марк. падение продаж

SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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The sixth child of James Watt, merchant and general contractor, and Agnes Muirhead, Watt was a weak and sickly child; he was one of only two to survive childhood out of a total of eight, yet, like his father, he was to live to an age of over 80. He was educated at local schools, including Greenock Grammar School where he was an uninspired pupil. At the age of 17 he was sent to live with relatives in Glasgow and then in 1755 to London to become an apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker, John Morgan of Finch Lane, Cornhill. Less than a year later he returned to Greenock and then to Glasgow, where he was appointed mathematical instrument maker to the University and was permitted in 1757 to set up a workshop within the University grounds. In this position he came to know many of the University professors and staff, and it was thus that he became involved in work on the steam engine when in 1764 he was asked to put in working order a defective Newcomen engine model. It did not take Watt long to perceive that the great inefficiency of the Newcomen engine was due to the repeated heating and cooling of the cylinder. His idea was to drive the steam out of the cylinder and to condense it in a separate vessel. The story is told of Watt's flash of inspiration as he was walking across Glasgow Green one Sunday afternoon; the idea formed perfectly in his mind and he became anxious to get back to his workshop to construct the necessary apparatus, but this was the Sabbath and work had to wait until the morrow, so Watt forced himself to wait until the Monday morning.

Watt designed a condensing engine and was lent money for its development by Joseph Black, the Glasgow University professor who had established the concept of latent heat. In 1768 Watt went into partnership with John Roebuck, who required the steam engine for the drainage of a coal-mine that he was opening up at Bo'ness, West Lothian. In 1769, Watt took out his patent for "A New Invented Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines". When Roebuck went bankrupt in 1772, Matthew Boulton, proprietor of the Soho Engineering Works near Birmingham, bought Roebuck's share in Watt's patent. Watt had met Boulton four years earlier at the Soho works, where power was obtained at that time by means of a water-wheel and a steam engine to pump the water back up again above the wheel. Watt moved to Birmingham in 1774, and after the patent had been extended by Parliament in 1775 he and Boulton embarked on a highly profitable partnership. While Boulton endeavoured to keep the business supplied with capital, Watt continued to refine his engine, making several improvements over the years; he was also involved frequently in legal proceedings over infringements of his patent.

In 1794 Watt and Boulton founded the new company of Boulton \& Watt, with a view to their retirement; Watt's son James and Boulton's son Matthew assumed management of the company. Watt retired in 1800, but continued to spend much of his time in the workshop he had set up in the garret of his Heathfield home; principal amongst his work after retirement was the invention of a pantograph sculpturing machine.

James Watt was hard-working, ingenious and essentially practical, but it is doubtful that he would have succeeded as he did without the business sense of his partner, Matthew Boulton. Watt coined the term "horsepower" for quantifying the output of engines, and the SI unit of power, the watt, is named in his honour.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

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He was the son of an Irish immigrant farmer, William Ford, and the oldest son to survive of Mary Litogot; his mother died in 1876 with the birth of her sixth child. He went to the village school, and at the age of 16 he was apprenticed to Flower brothers' machine shop and then at the Drydock \& Engineering Works in Detroit. In 1882 he left to return to the family farm and spent some time working with a 1 1/2 hp steam engine doing odd jobs for the farming community at $3 per day. He was then employed as a demonstrator for Westinghouse steam engines. He met Clara Jane Bryant at New Year 1885 and they were married on 11 April 1888. Their only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born on 6 November 1893.

At that time Henry worked on steam engine repairs for the Edison Illuminating Company, where he became Chief Engineer. He became one of a group working to develop a "horseless carriage" in 1896 and in June completed his first vehicle, a "quadri cycle" with a two-cylinder engine. It was built in a brick shed, which had to be partially demolished to get the carriage out.

Ford became involved in motor racing, at which he was more successful than he was in starting a car-manufacturing company. Several early ventures failed, until the Ford Motor Company of 1903. By October 1908 they had started with production of the Model T. The first, of which over 15 million were built up to the end of its production in May 1927, came out with bought-out steel stampings and a planetary gearbox, and had a one-piece four-cylinder block with a bolt-on head. This was one of the most successful models built by Ford or any other motor manufacturer in the life of the motor car.

Interchangeability of components was an important element in Ford's philosophy. Ford was a pioneer in the use of vanadium steel for engine components. He adopted the principles of Frederick Taylor, the pioneer of time-and-motion study, and installed the world's first moving assembly line for the production of magnetos, started in 1913. He installed blast furnaces at the factory to make his own steel, and he also promoted research and the cultivation of the soya bean, from which a plastic was derived.

In October 1913 he introduced the "Five Dollar Day", almost doubling the normal rate of pay. This was a profit-sharing scheme for his employees and contained an element of a reward for good behaviour. About this time he initiated work on an agricultural tractor, the "Fordson" made by a separate company, the directors of which were Henry and his son Edsel.

In 1915 he chartered the Oscar II, a "peace ship", and with fifty-five delegates sailed for Europe a week before Christmas, docking at Oslo. Their objective was to appeal to all European Heads of State to stop the war. He had hoped to persuade manufacturers to replace armaments with tractors in their production programmes. In the event, Ford took to his bed in the hotel with a chill, stayed there for five days and then sailed for New York and home. He did, however, continue to finance the peace activists who remained in Europe. Back in America, he stood for election to the US Senate but was defeated. He was probably the father of John Dahlinger, illegitimate son of Evangeline Dahlinger, a stenographer employed by the firm and on whom he lavished gifts of cars, clothes and properties. He became the owner of a weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which became the medium for the expression of many of his more unorthodox ideas. He was involved in a lawsuit with the Chicago Tribune in 1919, during which he was cross-examined on his knowledge of American history: he is reputed to have said "History is bunk". What he actually said was, "History is bunk as it is taught in schools", a very different comment. The lawyers who thus made a fool of him would have been surprised if they could have foreseen the force and energy that their actions were to release. For years Ford employed a team of specialists to scour America and Europe for furniture, artefacts and relics of all kinds, illustrating various aspects of history. Starting with the Wayside Inn from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, buildings were bought, dismantled and moved, to be reconstructed in Greenfield Village, near Dearborn. The courthouse where Abraham Lincoln had practised law and the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright brothers built their first primitive aeroplane were added to the farmhouse where the proprietor, Henry Ford, had been born. Replicas were made of Independence Hall, Congress Hall and the old City Hall in Philadelphia, and even a reconstruction of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory was installed. The Henry Ford museum was officially opened on 21 October 1929, on the fiftieth anniversary of Edison's invention of the incandescent bulb, but it continued to be a primary preoccupation of the great American car maker until his death.

Henry Ford was also responsible for a number of aeronautical developments at the Ford Airport at Dearborn. He introduced the first use of radio to guide a commercial aircraft, the first regular airmail service in the United States. He also manufactured the country's first all-metal multi-engined plane, the Ford Tri-Motor.

Edsel became President of the Ford Motor Company on his father's resignation from that position on 30 December 1918. Following the end of production in May 1927 of the Model T, the replacement Model A was not in production for another six months. During this period Henry Ford, though officially retired from the presidency of the company, repeatedly interfered and countermanded the orders of his son, ostensibly the man in charge. Edsel, who died of stomach cancer at his home at Grosse Point, Detroit, on 26 May 1943, was the father of Henry Ford II. Henry Ford died at his home, "Fair Lane", four years after his son's death.

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SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Jesse Ramsden was the son of an innkeeper but received a good general education: after attending the free school at Halifax, he was sent at the age of 12 to his uncle for further study, particularly in mathematics. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed to a cloth-worker in Halifax and on completion of the apprenticeship in 1755 he moved to London to work as a clerk in a cloth warehouse. In 1758 he became an apprentice in the workshop of a London mathematical instrument-maker named Burton. He quickly gained the skill, particularly in engraving, and by 1762 he was able to set up on his own account. He married in 1765 or 1766 the youngest daughter of the optician John Dollond FRS (1706– 61) and received a share of Dollond's patent for making achromatic lenses.

Ramsden's experience and reputation increased rapidly and he was generally regarded as the leading instrument-maker of his time. He opened a shop in the Haymarket and transferred to Piccadilly in 1775. His staff increased to about sixty workers and apprentices, and by 1789 he had constructed nearly 1,000 sextants as well as theodolites, micrometers, balances, barometers, quadrants and other instruments.

One of Ramsden's most important contributions to precision measurement was his development of machines for obtaining accurate division of angular and linear scales. For this work he received a premium from the Commissioners of the Board of Longitude, who published his descriptions of the machines. For the trigonometrical survey of Great Britain, initiated by General William Roy FRS (1726–90) and continued by the Board of Ordnance, Ramsden supplied a 3 ft (91 cm) theodolite and steel measuring chains, and was also engaged to check the glass tubes used to measure the fundamental base line.

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1) Ingenieur, der/Ingenieurin, die; (service engineer, installation engineer) Techniker, der/Technikerin, die

2) (maker or designer of engines) Maschinenbauingenieur, der

3)

1) (coll.): (contrive) arrangieren; entwickeln [Plan]

2) (manage construction of) konstruieren

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1) (a person who designs, makes, or works with, machinery: an electrical engineer.) der Ingenieur

2) ((usually civil engineer) a person who designs, constructs, or maintains roads, railways, bridges, sewers etc.) der Ingenieur

3) (an officer who manages a ship's engines.) der Maschinist

4) ((American) an engine-driver.) der Lokomotivführer

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[ˌenʤɪˈnɪəʳ, AM -ˈnɪr]

I. n

1. (qualified in engineering) Ingenieur(in) m(f); (in navy) [Schiffs]ingenieur(in) m(f); (on merchant ship) Maschinist(in) m(f); (maintains machines) [Wartungs]ingenieur(in) m(f); (controls engines) Techniker(in) m(f); MIL Technischer Offizier

civil/electrical/mechanical \engineer Bau-/Elektro-/Maschinenbauingenieur(in) m(f)

2. ( pej: contriver) Arrangeur(in) m(f) (of von + dat)

3. AM (engine driver) Lok[omotiv]führer(in) m(f)

II. vt

▪ to \engineer sth

1. usu passive (construct precisely) etw konstruieren

to \engineer a bridge/street eine Brücke/Straße bauen

2. ( pej: skilfully contrive) etw arrangieren

how did you manage to \engineer that invitation to the party? wie bist du bloß an diese Einladung zu der Party gekommen?

to \engineer a coup einen Coup vorbereiten

to \engineer a meeting ein Treffen arrangieren

to \engineer a plan [or scheme] einen Plan aushecken [o entwickeln]

* * *

1. n

1) (TECH) Techniker(in) m(f); (with university degree etc) Ingenieur(in) m(f)

2) (NAUT on merchant ships) Maschinist(in) m(f); (in Navy) (Schiffs)ingenieur(in) m(f)

3) (US RAIL) Lokführer(in) m(f)

4) (fig of scheme) Arrangeur(in) m(f)

2. vt

1) (TECH) konstruieren

2) (fig) election, campaign, coup organisieren; downfall, plot arrangieren, einfädeln; success, victory in die Wege leiten; (SPORT) goal einfädeln

* * *

engineer [ˌendʒıˈnıə(r)]

A s

1. a) Ingenieur(in)

b) Techniker(in)

c) Mechaniker(in):

engineers pl TEL Stördienst m

2. auch SCHIFF Maschinist(in)

3. BAHN US Lokomotivführer(in)

4. MIL Pionier m:

engineer combat battalion leichtes Pionierbataillon;

engineer construction battalion schweres Pionierbataillon;

engineer group Pionierregiment n

5. Bergbau: Kunststeiger m

B v/t

1. Straßen, Brücken etc (er)bauen, anlegen, konstruieren, errichten

2. fig (geschickt) in die Wege leiten, organisieren, deichseln, einfädeln (beide umg)

C v/i als Ingenieur etc tätig sein

e. abk

1. engineering

2. engineer

3. entrance

eng. abk

1. engine

2. engineer (engineering)

3. engraved

4. engraver

5. engraving

* * *

1) Ingenieur, der/Ingenieurin, die; (service engineer, installation engineer) Techniker, der/Technikerin, die

2) (maker or designer of engines) Maschinenbauingenieur, der

3)

1) (coll.): (contrive) arrangieren; entwickeln [Plan]

2) (manage construction of) konstruieren

* * *

Maschinist m. n.

Ingenieur m.

Pionier -e m.

Techniker m.

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

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John was the third son of David Elder. The father came from a family of millwrights and moved to Glasgow where he worked for the well-known shipbuilding firm of Napier's and was involved with improving marine engines. John was educated at Glasgow High School and then for a while at the Department of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University, where he showed great aptitude for mathematics and drawing. He spent five years as an apprentice under Robert Napier followed by two short periods of activity as a pattern-maker first and then a draughtsman in England. He returned to Scotland in 1849 to become Chief Draughtsman to Napier, but in 1852 he left to become a partner with the Glasgow general engineering company of Randolph Elliott \& Co. Shortly after his induction (at the age of 28), the engineering firm was renamed Randolph Elder \& Co.; in 1868, when the partnership expired, it became known as John Elder \& Co. From the outset Elder, with his partner, Charles Randolph, approached mechanical (especially heat) engineering in a rigorous manner. Their knowledge and understanding of entropy ensured that engine design was not a hit-and-miss affair, but one governed by recognition of the importance of the new kinetic theory of heat and with it a proper understanding of thermodynamic principles, and by systematic development. In this Elder was joined by W.J.M. Rankine, Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow University, who helped him develop the compound marine engine. Elder and Randolph built up a series of patents, which guaranteed their company's commercial success and enabled them for a while to be the sole suppliers of compound steam reciprocating machinery. Their first such engine at sea was fitted in 1854 on the SS Brandon for the Limerick Steamship Company; the ship showed an improved performance by using a third less coal, which he was able to reduce still further on later designs.

Elder developed steam jacketing and recognized that, with higher pressures, triple-expansion types would be even more economical. In 1862 he patented a design of quadruple-expansion engine with reheat between cylinders and advocated the importance of balancing reciprocating parts. The effect of his improvements was to greatly reduce fuel consumption so that long sea voyages became an economic reality.

His yard soon reached dimensions then unequalled on the Clyde where he employed over 4,000 workers; Elder also was always interested in the social welfare of his labour force. In 1860 the engine shops were moved to the Govan Old Shipyard, and again in 1864 to the Fairfield Shipyard, about 1 mile (1.6 km) west on the south bank of the Clyde. At Fairfield, shipbuilding was commenced, and with the patents for compounding secure, much business was placed for many years by shipowners serving long-distance trades such as South America; the Pacific Steam Navigation Company took up his ideas for their ships. In later years the yard became known as the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd, but it remains today as one of Britain's most efficient shipyards and is known now as Kvaerner Govan Ltd.

In 1869, at the age of only 45, John Elder was unanimously elected President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland; however, before taking office and giving his eagerly awaited presidential address, he died in London from liver disease. A large multitude attended his funeral and all the engineering shops were silent as his body, which had been brought back from London to Glasgow, was carried to its resting place. In 1857 Elder had married Isabella Ure, and on his death he left her a considerable fortune, which she used generously for Govan, for Glasgow and especially the University. In 1883 she endowed the world's first Chair of Naval Architecture at the University of Glasgow, an act which was reciprocated in 1901 when the University awarded her an LLD on the occasion of its 450th anniversary.

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SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering, Steam and internal combustion engines

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As a boy, Smeaton showed mechanical ability, making for himself a number of tools and models. This practical skill was backed by a sound education, probably at Leeds Grammar School. At the age of 16 he entered his father's office; he seemed set to follow his father's profession in the law. In 1742 he went to London to continue his legal studies, but he preferred instead, with his father's reluctant permission, to set up as a scientific instrument maker and dealer and opened a shop of his own in 1748. About this time he began attending meetings of the Royal Society and presented several papers on instruments and mechanical subjects, being elected a Fellow in 1753. His interests were turning towards engineering but were informed by scientific principles grounded in careful and accurate observation.

In 1755 the second Eddystone lighthouse, on a reef some 14 miles (23 km) off the English coast at Plymouth, was destroyed by fire. The President of the Royal Society was consulted as to a suitable engineer to undertake the task of constructing a new one, and he unhesitatingly suggested Smeaton. Work began in 1756 and was completed in three years to produce the first great wave-swept stone lighthouse. It was constructed of Portland stone blocks, shaped and pegged both together and to the base rock, and bonded by hydraulic cement, scientifically developed by Smeaton. It withstood the storms of the English Channel for over a century, but by 1876 erosion of the rock had weakened the structure and a replacement had to be built. The upper portion of Smeaton's lighthouse was re-erected on a suitable base on Plymouth Hoe, leaving the original base portion on the reef as a memorial to the engineer.

The Eddystone lighthouse made Smeaton's reputation and from then on he was constantly in demand as a consultant in all kinds of engineering projects. He carried out a number himself, notably the 38 mile (61 km) long Forth and Clyde canal with thirty-nine locks, begun in 1768 but for financial reasons not completed until 1790. In 1774 he took charge of the Ramsgate Harbour works.

On the mechanical side, Smeaton undertook a systematic study of water-and windmills, to determine the design and construction to achieve the greatest power output. This work issued forth as the paper "An experimental enquiry concerning the natural powers of water and wind to turn mills" and exerted a considerable influence on mill design during the early part of the Industrial Revolution. Between 1753 and 1790 Smeaton constructed no fewer than forty-four mills.

Meanwhile, in 1756 he had returned to Austhorpe, which continued to be his home base for the rest of his life. In 1767, as a result of the disappointing performance of an engine he had been involved with at New River Head, Islington, London, Smeaton began his important study of the steam-engine. Smeaton was the first to apply scientific principles to the steam-engine and achieved the most notable improvements in its efficiency since its invention by Newcomen, until its radical overhaul by James Watt. To compare the performance of engines quantitatively, he introduced the concept of "duty", i.e. the weight of water that could be raised 1 ft (30 cm) while burning one bushel (84 lb or 38 kg) of coal. The first engine to embody his improvements was erected at Long Benton colliery in Northumberland in 1772, with a duty of 9.45 million pounds, compared to the best figure obtained previously of 7.44 million pounds. One source of heat loss he attributed to inaccurate boring of the cylinder, which he was able to improve through his close association with Carron Ironworks near Falkirk, Scotland.

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SUBJECT AREA: Automotive engineering, Land transport

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The son of a baker, his youthful interest in technical affairs led to his being apprenticed to a gunsmith with whom he produced his apprenticeship piece: a double-barrelled pistol with a rifled barrel and "nicely chased scrollwork", for which he received high praise. He remained there until 1852 before going to technical school in Stuttgart from 1853 to 1857. He then went to a steam-engineering company in Strasbourg to gain practical experience. He completed his formal education at Stuttgart Polytechnik, and in 1861 he left to tour France and England. There he worked in the engine-shop of Smith, Peacock \& Tanner and then with Roberts \& Co., textile machinery manufacturers of Manchester. He later moved to Coventry to work at Whitworths, and it was in that city that he was later involved with the Daimler Motor Company, who had been granted a licence by his company in Germany. In 1867 he was working at Bruderhaus Engineering Works at Reutlingen and in 1869 went to Maschinenbau Gesellschaft Karlsruhe where he became Manager and later a director. Early in the 1870s, N.A. Otto had reorganized his company into Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz and he appointed Gottlieb Daimler as Factory Manager and Wilhelm Maybach as Chief Designer. Together they developed the Otto engine to its limit, with Otto's co-operation. Daimler and Maybach had met previously when both were working at Bruderhaus. In 1875 Daimler left Deutz, taking Maybach with him to set up a factory in Stuttgart to manufacture light, high-speed internal-combustion engines. Their first patent was granted in 1883. This was for an engine fuelled by petrol and with hot tube ignition which continued to be used until Robert Bosch's low-voltage ignition became available in 1897. Two years later he produced his first vehicle, a motor cycle with outriggers. They showed a motor car at the Paris exhibition in 1889, but French manufacturers were slow to come forward and no French company could be found to undertake manufacture. Eventually Panhard and Levassor established the Daimler engine in France. Daimler Motoren GmbH was started in 1895, but soon after Daimler and Maybach parted, having provided an engine for a boat on the River Neckar in 1887 and that for the Wolfert airship in 1888. Daimler was in sole charge of the company from 1895, but his health began to decline in 1899 and he died in 1900.

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SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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James Pickard, the Birmingham button maker, also owned a flour mill at Snow Hill, in 1780, where Matthew Wasborough installed one of his rotative engines with ratchet gear and a flywheel. In August 1780, Pickard obtained a patent (no. 1263) for an application to make a rotative engine with a crank as well as gearwheels, one of which was weighted to help return the piston in the atmospheric cylinder during the dead stroke and overcome the dead centres of the crank. Wasborough's flywheel made the counterweight unnecessary, and engines were built with this and Pickard's crank. Several Birmingham business people seem to have been involved in the patent, and William Chapman of Newcastle upon Tyne was assigned the sole rights of erecting engines on the Wasborough-Pickard system in the counties of Northumberland, Durham and York. Wasborough was building engines in the south until his death the following year. The patentees tried to bargain with Boulton \& Watt to exchange the use of the crank for that of the separate condenser, but Boulton \& Watt would not agree, probably because James Watt claimed that one of his workers had stolen the idea of the crank and divulged it to Pickard. To avoid infringing Pickard's patent, Watt patented his sun-and-planet motion for his rotative engines.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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He was the fifth child of Charles and Ann Stalcrop Evans, and by the age of 15 he had four sisters and seven brothers. Nothing is known of his schooling, but at the age of 17 he was apprenticed to a Newport wheelwright and wagon-maker. At 19 he was enrolled in a Delaware Militia Company in the Revolutionary War but did not see active service. About this time he invented a machine for bending and cutting off the wires in textile carding combs. In July 1782, with his younger brother, Joseph, he moved to Tuckahoe on the eastern shore of the Delaware River, where he had the basic idea of the automatic flour mill. In July 1782, with his elder brothers John and Theophilus, he bought part of his father's Newport farm, on Red Clay Creek, and planned to build a mill there. In 1793 he married Sarah Tomlinson, daughter of a Delaware farmer, and joined his brothers at Red Clay Creek. He worked there for some seven years on his automatic mill, from about 1783 to 1790.

His system for the automatic flour mill consisted of bucket elevators to raise the grain, a horizontal screw conveyor, other conveying devices and a "hopper boy" to cool and dry the meal before gathering it into a hopper feeding the bolting cylinder. Together these components formed the automatic process, from incoming wheat to outgoing flour packed in barrels. At that time the idea of such automation had not been applied to any manufacturing process in America. The mill opened, on a non-automatic cycle, in 1785. In January 1786 Evans applied to the Delaware legislature for a twenty-five-year patent, which was granted on 30 January 1787 although there was much opposition from the Quaker millers of Wilmington and elsewhere. He also applied for patents in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Hampshire. In May 1789 he went to see the mill of the four Ellicot brothers, near Baltimore, where he was impressed by the design of a horizontal screw conveyor by Jonathan Ellicot and exchanged the rights to his own elevator for those of this machine. After six years' work on his automatic mill, it was completed in 1790. In the autumn of that year a miller in Brandywine ordered a set of Evans's machinery, which set the trend toward its general adoption. A model of it was shown in the Market Street shop window of Robert Leslie, a watch-and clockmaker in Philadelphia, who also took it to England but was unsuccessful in selling the idea there.

In 1790 the Federal Plant Laws were passed; Evans's patent was the third to come within the new legislation. A detailed description with a plate was published in a Philadelphia newspaper in January 1791, the first of a proposed series, but the paper closed and the series came to nothing. His brother Joseph went on a series of sales trips, with the result that some machinery of Evans's design was adopted. By 1792 over one hundred mills had been equipped with Evans's machinery, the millers paying a royalty of $40 for each pair of millstones in use. The series of articles that had been cut short formed the basis of Evans's The Young Millwright and Miller's Guide, published first in 1795 after Evans had moved to Philadelphia to set up a store selling milling supplies; it was 440 pages long and ran to fifteen editions between 1795 and 1860.

Evans was fairly successful as a merchant. He patented a method of making millstones as well as a means of packing flour in barrels, the latter having a disc pressed down by a toggle-joint arrangement. In 1801 he started to build a steam carriage. He rejected the idea of a steam wheel and of a low-pressure or atmospheric engine. By 1803 his first engine was running at his store, driving a screw-mill working on plaster of Paris for making millstones. The engine had a 6 in. (15 cm) diameter cylinder with a stroke of 18 in. (45 cm) and also drove twelve saws mounted in a frame and cutting marble slabs at a rate of 100 ft (30 m) in twelve hours. He was granted a patent in the spring of 1804. He became involved in a number of lawsuits following the extension of his patent, particularly as he increased the licence fee, sometimes as much as sixfold. The case of Evans v. Samuel Robinson, which Evans won, became famous and was one of these. Patent Right Oppression Exposed, or Knavery Detected, a 200-page book with poems and prose included, was published soon after this case and was probably written by Oliver Evans. The steam engine patent was also extended for a further seven years, but in this case the licence fee was to remain at a fixed level. Evans anticipated Edison in his proposal for an "Experimental Company" or "Mechanical Bureau" with a capital of thirty shares of $100 each. It came to nothing, however, as there were no takers. His first wife, Sarah, died in 1816 and he remarried, to Hetty Ward, the daughter of a New York innkeeper. He was buried in the Bowery, on Lower Manhattan; the church was sold in 1854 and again in 1890, and when no relative claimed his body he was reburied in an unmarked grave in Trinity Cemetery, 57th Street, Broadway.

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SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology, Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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John Wallis Titt grew up on a farm which had a working post-mill, but at 24 years of age he joined the firm of Wallis, Haslam \& Stevens, agricultural engineers and steam engine builders in Basingstoke. From there he went to the millwrighting firm of Brown \& May of Devizes, where he worked for five years.

In 1872 he founded his own firm in Warminster, where his principal work as an agricultural engineer was on hay and straw elevators. In 1876 he moved his firm to the Woodcock Ironworks, also in Warminster. There he carried on his work as an agricultural engineer, but he also had an iron foundry. By 1884 the firm was installing water pumps on estates around Warminster, and it was about that time that he built his first wind engines. Between 1884 and 1903, when illness forced his retirement, his wind engines were built primarily with adjustable sails. These wind engines, under the trade marks "Woodcock" and "Simplex", consisted of a lattice tower with the sails mounted on a a ring at the top. The sails were turned to face the wind by means of a fantail geared to the ring or by a wooden vane. The important feature lay in the sails, which were made of canvas on a wood-and-iron frame mounted in a ring. The ends of the sail frames were hinged to the sail circumferences. In the middle of the sail a circular strap was attached so that all the frames had the same aspect for a given setting of the bar. The importance lies in the adjustable sails, which gave the wind engine the ability to work in variable winds.

Whilst this was not an original patent of John Wallis Titt, he is known to be the only maker of wind engines in Britain who built his business on this highly efficient form of sail. In design terms it derives from the annular sails of the conventional windmills at Haverhill in Suffolk and Roxwell in Essex. After his retirement, his sons reverted to the production of the fixed-bladed galvanized-iron wind engine.

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- gunboat

- stick to one's guns

gun n arma de fuego / pistola / revólver

tr[gʌn]

noun

1 (gen) arma de fuego; (handgun) pistola, revólver nombre masculino; (rifle) rifle nombre masculino, fusil nombre masculino; (shotgun) escopeta; (cannon) cañón nombre masculino

2 SMALLSPORT/SMALL pistola

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to carry a gun ir armado,-a

to jump the gun (gen) adelantarse (a los acontecimientos), precipitarse 2 (in race) salir en falso, salir antes de tiempo, tomar la salida en falso

to pull a gun on somebody apuntar a alguien con una pistola

to stick to one's guns mantenerse en sus trece

gun carriage cureña

gun dog perro de caza

gun licence licencia de armas

gun ['gʌn] vt, gunned ; gunning

1) or to gun down : matar a tiros, asesinar

2) : acelerar (rápidamente)

to gun the engine: acelerar el motor

gun n

1) cannon: cañón m

2) firearm: arma f de fuego

3) spray gun: pistola f

to jump the gun : adelantarse, salir antes de tiempo

• arma de fuego s.f.

• cañón s.m.

• escopeta s.f.

• fusil s.m.

• pieza s.f.

• pistola s.f.

• revólver s.m.

1) ( pistol) pistola f, revólver m; (shotgun, rifle) escopeta f, fusil m, rifle m; ( artillery piece) cañón m

2) ( starting gun) pistola f ( que da el disparo de salida)

- gun down

- gun for

1. N

1) (=pistol) pistola f, revólver m ; (=rifle) fusil m ; (=shotgun) escopeta f ; (=cannon) cañón m

- be going great guns

- stick to one's guns

2) (Brit) (=person) pistolero(-a) m / f

VT disparar sobre

- gun down

- gun for

* * *

1) ( pistol) pistola f, revólver m; (shotgun, rifle) escopeta f, fusil m, rifle m; ( artillery piece) cañón m

2) ( starting gun) pistola f ( que da el disparo de salida)

- gun down

- gun for

- bed box

- angled bed

- axie bed