Historical information

8HP Blackstone Lamps Start Oil Engine engine number 71076
Engine Details
Maximum operating RPM of 240.
Fitted with a 3'9" Flywheel
Tested on the 6th of November 1908.
Shipped to Cluter buck South Australia for installation on concrete base.

Recovered and restored during the 80's in South Australia
Purchased privately in 2013 in Tailem Bend South Australia and transported to Victoria.
Currently on loan to the Puffing Billy Museum at Menzies Creek as an operating exhibit.

Blackstone & Co. was a farm implement maker at Stamford, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. In 1896 they built lamp start oil engines. The Lamp or hot-bulb engine (also hotbulb or heavy-oil engine) is a type of internal combustion engine. It is an engine in which fuel is ignited by being brought into contact with a red-hot metal surface inside a bulb, followed by the introduction of air (oxygen) compressed into the hot-bulb chamber by the rising piston. There is some ignition when the fuel is introduced, but it quickly uses up the available oxygen in the bulb. Vigorous ignition takes place only when sufficient oxygen is supplied to the hot-bulb chamber on the compression stroke of the engine. Most hot-bulb engines were produced as one-cylinder, low-speed two-stroke crankcase scavenged units

Significance

Historic - Industrial - single cylinder, horizontal, 4 stroke, hot-bulb ignition oil engine

Physical description

Blackstone 8HP Oil Engine made from steel, wrought iron and brass

Inscriptions & markings

Oval Plate with Black Stones and Clutter Buck Brass Plaque
engine number 71076