# High pressure Steam engine Murdoch Aitken



## Donleybill (May 11, 2021)

Looking for a set of drawings to build an engine called:
High Pressure Steam Engine Of 1840
By Murdock Aitken & Co Glasgow
Scale 1inch To 1 foot. 
H Clarkson & Son
53/57 Layerthorpe
York England 
I have a few drawing but the drawing set is incomplete and what I have is washed out. 
I hope someone can help me purchase a complete set of drawings. Don’t have enough info to begin this build 
Bill
Thousand Oaks Ca


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## graham-xrf (May 11, 2021)

Hi @Donleybill.
You have not had any replies yet, but you got me curious. The name Murdock associated with steam engines around then is legendary, but I wonder the one I am thinking of is the same guy. I say this because he died a year earlier (1839), and had been in declining health for several years.
He was a Scot, Murdoch, but anglicised his name Murdock when he worked in England. He had a partnership with Boulton and Watt - meaning James Watt, from where we name the power unit!

There were patents. Lots of them. Murdock had duties to check for patent violations, among other things. From there, you have a chance at drawings. The patents may have been filed, or held by Aitkin, or Clarkson, or (likely), Watt.

Re: the washed out drawings. Have you considered some image manipulation? There are tricks to bring out and enhance even faint impressions that one never knew were there - just an idea. I have used the GIMP Image manipulation software (which is free) before, to get at a car number.


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## Donleybill (May 26, 2021)

graham-xrf said:


> Hi @Donleybill.
> You have not had any replies yet, but you got me curious. The name Murdock associated with steam engines around then is legendary, but I wonder the one I am thinking of is the same guy. I say this because he died a year earlier (1839), and had been in declining health for several years.
> He was a Scot, Murdoch, but anglicised his name Murdock when he worked in England. He had a partnership with Boulton and Watt - meaning James Watt, from where we name the power unit!
> 
> ...


No help getting drawings.  The drawings set pages are numbered SE1 - SE13.
along with pages BE 13, 15, 8, 5, 5a, 20.
I have pages SE/1, SE/2, SE/3.
SE/1 is washed out but provides the information about the drawing set, the engine name, the owner of the copyright.  Anything suggestions would be greatly appreciated


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## graham-xrf (May 27, 2021)

Hi @Donleybill 
So sorry nothing has surfaced yet. Here in UK, there is a big interest in steam engines, their preservation, and some enthusiasts have very obscure information collections. I had hoped that one of them might respond.

If you have a reasonable photo image of SE1, post the file attachment here, so we can get a look. It may be worth digging out the websites of UK model engineering societies. A pal of mine took me to a meeting of one in London (SMEE), and I was amazed by the fabulous steam engines being shown off. The knowledge of these admittedly nerdy steam engine folk was expansive. Their website has back issues of their journal from 1976.

There is another in society North London (NLSME) , and I dare say, more up and down the country. Just mailing in cold might have them put the question to their members. Keep in mind that their activity might have been somewhat on hold because of the COVID lockdown.

Maybe start with ..
https://www.sm-ee.co.uk/

https://www.leedsmodelengineers.org.uk/

There may be dozens of these. I am thinking that somewhere in there, there may be folk who know everything there is to know about Murdock / Murdoch, and your engine of interest.


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