Industrial Age Steam Man

[Euclid]

I started watching videos of the amazing life of Fred Dibnah who loved the age of steam and the coal-fired Industrial Revolution.  Drawn to that passion, Fred began his career as a steeplejack doing maintenance work on industrial smokestacks.

 

But Fred was late for the coal-fired age with its smokestacks, so he began specializing in their demolition.  He used an old-school method of cutting out the support around about half the base while replacing that support with timber props.  Then he would set the timber on fire and time it so the props all gave way at the same time, thus predicting where the stack would fall.  He was quite a showman and his chimney topplings were known to attract crowds as large as 10,000 people.

 

Fred used his income to finance a hobby of rebuilding steam engines such as a traction engine and a steam roller.  He had a steam powered workshop in his backyard.

 

He continued his career as a television presenter of mechanical engineering in the steam age.  Later in life, he was diagnosed with cancer, and then began an ambitious project of building a replica coal mine in his backyard.  He died before he could finish it, but nevertheless made good progress on the steam hoist, head pulleys, and vertical shaft which reached a depth of 20 feet.  His intent was to sink the shaft to 70 feet, and then tunnel several hundred feet horizontally to daylight in the river valley.  This horizontal drift was to have a narrow gage rail tramway.

 

Here he is giving instructions on how to erect a scaffold on a tall smokestack:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W_7uIapoHc

[Euclid]

When demolishing a brick chimney stack, it pays to remove its support at the bottom and let gravity do the work, just like cutting down a tree.  But there is an important distinction between a tree and a brick stack, in that the stack has no tensile strength.  When you notch a tree, you produce a straight line hinge across the diameter.  When the notch removes support, the tree leans in a direction perpendicular to the hinge as the tree fiber bends. 

It is a great danger to believe that this principle applies to a brick smokestack or a block silo in demolition work.  When you notch into a smokestack, there is no tensile strength; no fiber to bend.  Once enough support is removed on one side of the stack, it begins to lean and the random fracturing of the remaining support cause it to burst chaotically under the vertical pressure from the weight of the stack above.  So the stack tends to drop while remaining vertical as the supporting brick structure is crushed and displaced by the intact stack above dropping straight down. 

During the vertical collapse, the driving weight diminishes as the vertical part gets shorter.  At some point during this vertical collapse, as the weight diminishes, the stack will probably lose its balance and fall to one side, landing horizontally.  However, there is no way to predict what direction from its base that it will fall. Predicting the fall direction is a critical requirement for smokestack demolition because of the threat to surrounding properties.  One method of taking down a stack is with explosives, but that produces the same chaotic vertical collapse. 

Another odd effect that can occur in a vertical drop is that the stack can “walk” horizontally as it comes straight down while still standing vertical.  This is particularly likely in the case of silos, which have been known to walk maybe 30-50 feet away from their foundation in any direction as they collapse vertically.  They walk in random directions, changing directions at any time.  So a person may be standing by anticipating a silo to fall in a certain direction and get run over by the silo as it "walks."      

So Fred used an old standard technique in which the stack support is removed on one side all at once, in order to reduce the chaos of a sudden and uncontrolled release that would happen if you just starting remove stack structure until you reached the critical point of failure.

With Fred’s method, you remove bricks gradually, but as you remove them, you continually add replacement support in the form of wood posts to prop up the stack where the bricks have been removed.  So you remove enough bricks to go beyond the tipping point, but the tipping is prevented by the wood posts. 

Then you build a bonfire around the wood supports and they burn to the point of losing their support simultaneously.  The point is to lay the brick stack out in line with very little coming down vertically.  Once the stack is laid down, the bricks can be picked up in an efficient manner. 

Here is a series of Fred’s chimney fellings in which he explains the process.  Of note are the methods to detect the fall of the stack that slowly begins hours before it actually comes down. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh2j8MITT7A

[tree68]

Euclid

When the notch removes support, the tree leans in a direction perpendicular to the hinge as the tree fiber bends. 

Actually, it has more to do with the center of gravity of the tree than it does how the notch is cut, unless the tree is pretty much straight (which means the center of gravity is directly over the base).   More than a few amateur fellers have suffered a disaster because they didn't take that into consideration...

[Euclid]

Here is the problem with knocking out the base support all at once.  The stack drops vertically, and then decides which way to go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXDDEH0yanU

[carnej1]

Then there is the modern method:

https://youtu.be/hr_g3TpGxEc

 

[Euclid]

Explosives were used in Fred’s era.  But Fred’s method of “burning the stack down” goes back to the 1890s.  He preferred it in cases where the proximity of buildings required the stack to fall in a specific location.  Mill owners and insurance companies also preferred it, as indicated by the fact that they paid Fred four times what explosive demolition would cost. 

Here is the modern way of doing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-slDDFNdx8

[CShaveRR]

Maybe off topic and maybe a bit overboard, but there's this building in Rochelle...

[rrnut282]

I think I know which building you're talking about.

Hey, you live in Da Region.  Don't you have a 'friend' who knows a guy who.....

[Euclid]

Later in life, Fred made a series of TV shows with the BBC in which he explained the industrial age with its steam engines, boilers, foundries, rolling mills, water power, spinning mills, etc.   In this episode, Fred looks at iron and steel making, and products that were produced such as the anchor and anchor chains for the Titanic. 

Fred had a real passion for the early industrial age and through the television shows, he would explain the mechanical wonders to the general public.  Even Fred’s own backyard turned into a microcosm of the industrial age with his steam tractors, steam powered tools, and replica coal mine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTlGTA9pTU

Here is the episode on railways.  He has other episodes that also cover railroad development:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpAQfZba0f4

[Euclid]

Here, Fred gives a BBC presentation on railway development in Britain, including early locomotive trials, the invention of the fire tube boiler, wooden wheels on wooden rails, and incline rope railways.  I like how he explains the rather technical detail in a very practical way that anyone can understand.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOSTopy-gE

 

Here is a younger Fred in his chimney toppling heyday.  It was his tradition to have his wife light the fire.  Here, there is a fair representation of the chimney toppling culture. 

It certainly becomes a strong fire with the draft of the stack at work.  You can hear the eerily, angry roar of the fire.  You can never be 100% sure about how it will act at the base.  Stacks can have soft spots in the brickwork.  If there happens to be a soft spot on one side of the base, and you undermine and prop the opposite side; the fire might weaken the soft side before it burns the props away on the opposite side.  Then the stack would fall to the wrong side.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L1WOnR2KBY

[Ulrich]

Why not just start at the top and work your way down, brick by brick? No tipping or explosives needed.. just apply enough blunt force to loosen the mortar.

[tree68]

Ulrich

Why not just start at the top and work your way down, brick by brick? No tipping or explosives needed.. just apply enough blunt force to loosen the mortar.

That's been done, too, usually dropping the bricks down the inside of the chimney.

It would be time consuming, though - and time is money.

I would suppose that if mass demolition isn't possible, that's the only other option (other than leaving it standing).

[Euclid]

Yes, sometimes "brick by brick" is the only option.  It is a lot more labor to take it apart brick by brick.  When you topple it, all the bricks separate all at once by the impact of the stack hitting the ground.  Dynamite is the quickest way to bring down a stack, but the direction of fall is less predictable than the technique Fred uses known as “burning down a chimney stack.” 

The hazard of collateral damage from either dynamite or burning down varies from one job to another.  With some, dynamite is not an acceptable method because of the collateral damage hazard. So burning the stack down is the next safest option.  However, if the risk of collateral damage is too high, then taking the stack down brick by brick is the only option. 

I can’t find it now, but there is a video of Fred taking down a big chimney “brick by brick.”  He used a manual hammer and chisel to knock out one or two bricks at a time, dropped them down the inside of the stack, and had a sort of chute rigged up at the base to shoot the bricks out into a pile.  He did the work alone except for a man at the base hauling the bricks away.  It was several months of repetitive work to take off course after course of bricks and lower the scaffold platform as he went.    

[tdmidget]

A new high in ego for Bucky to second guess Fred Dibnah. Notice that none of those disasters were his. Controlled demolition has blown way more smoke up posteriors than they have structures. What they love to call an "implosion" is not, it is a collapse. They don't publicize their disasters so you don't know about them. Fred never had that problem because he had no disasters.

[Norm48327]

tdmidget

A new high in ego for Bucky to second guess Fred Dibnah.

Steven Hawking of the rail world?

[Euclid]

tdmidget

A new high in ego for Bucky to second guess Fred Dibnah. Notice that none of those disasters were his. Controlled demolition has blown way more smoke up posteriors than they have structures. What they love to call an "implosion" is not, it is a collapse. They don't publicize their disasters so you don't know about them. Fred never had that problem because he had no disasters.

 

 

TD MIDGET,

Your comment is incoherent.  What on earth are you trying to say? 

When you say, “Notice that none of those disasters were his [Fred Dibnah],” what disasters are you referring to?  There has been no mention of a disaster in this thread, let alone blaming any disaster on Fred, as you imply.

I am NOT advocating the use of explosives and saying that it would be safer than Fred’s method, if that is what you are getting at.  If you read a bit more carefully, it will be obvious what I said.

I described three methods of stack demolition:

1)   Manually removing brick by brick from top to bottom.

2)   Explosives placed near the base.

3)   Fred’s method of “burning the stack down.”

 

Fred took down 90 chimney stacks using methods #1 and #3.  He said that he did not use or prefer explosives because of the risk of the stack falling in the wrong direction. 

Most interestingly, he also explained that out of his reverence for the steam age, and respect for the builders of the stack, he preferred his method of toppling because he thought it was a “fairer fight” in the demise of the stack.         

     

[Wizlish]

tdmidget

A new high in ego for Bucky to second guess Fred Dibnah. Notice that none of those disasters were his.

I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than an invitation to more pile-on Bucky-bashing.  I see nothing in Euclid's fairly numerous posts that indicates he has other than high respect for Fred (and his methods), and I read his comments about 'this is what happens if you do it wrong' to specifically EXCLUDE Fred (or Loizeaux of CDI, etc.) from any list of mistakes.

Personally, I found this thread full of interesting information ... up to the last few posts.  Hopefully we can concentrate on the actual interesting information going forward ... please.

[Deggesty]

Wizlish

 

 

tdmidget

A new high in ego for Bucky to second guess Fred Dibnah. Notice that none of those disasters were his.

 

 

I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than an invitation to more pile-on Bucky-bashing.  I see nothing in Euclid's fairly numerous posts that indicates he has other than high respect for Fred (and his methods), and I read his comments about 'this is what happens if you do it wrong' to specifically EXCLUDE Fred (or Loizeaux of CDI, etc.) from any list of mistakes.

Personally, I found this thread full of interesting information ... up to the last few posts.  Hopefully we can concentrate on the actual interesting information going forward ... please.

 

Yes, let us go forward.

[Murphy Siding]

     Not a chimney, but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8DEDUqd0RU My office at the time was a block to the right of the Zip tower.  After that fiasco, the demolition company spent 4-5 weeks whacking the concrete into little chunks with a wrecking ball

[Deggesty]

That reminds me of the destruction a hotel in Birmingham in the late sixties or early seventies. As I recall the exterior walls were genrally done in as planned, but much of the interior needed a great deal more work.

More successful was the destruction of the Terminal Station--except that the steel plate placed on the floor beneath the central dome failed to keep the dome parts from landing in the street that ran below the station. As it was, there was no traffic passing through when the detritus hit the pavement, but I am sure the first drivers attempting to go through aftgerwards were somewhat dismayed, at least.

[Euclid]

Here is one stack that Fred took down brick by brick.  In the video, he talks about his thoughts about taking on such a big, monotonous job.  It took him three months to get it to this point.  I suppose he could have had help, but there is a limit to how many people could work on the scaffold, and the work has to be on just the one level matching the top of the stack as it lowers during the process.   

In another video, Fred shows how to put up the ladder.  This alone seems like an unbelievably risky and labor intensive business.  It is a complicated process where ladders are hoisted up and stacked on top of the previous one.  Each one requires holes to be chiseled and iron pins driven into the brickwork.  The ladder sections are then tied off to those pins. 

Can you imagine putting up a couple hundred feet of ladder— and doing so on both sides of the stack?  Then when the job is finished, all that ladder has to be disassembled and taken down section by section.  All of the iron pins must be removed, and their holes filled with cement mortar. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWl3lyM8vUo