Doxford and Sons, Marine engineers, Sunderland

It's Friday, and time for another video, and I have done nothing this week! The wind is still banging outside and although I am better, I am still not 100% , but I am back next week!!! Honest. Here are some pics of one of our late great engineering shops, where everything was done on a truly GRAND scale. Hope you enjoy it!
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Created with AquaSoft SlideShow for KZbin Preview: www.aquasoft.net

[@lawrenceogden2162]

MY FIRST SHIP IN 1971 WAS A DOXFORD 4 CYLINDER, BEAUTIFUL ENGINE PLEASURE TO SAIL ON GREAT MEMORIES, THANKS FOR POSTING.

[@philhermetic]

It is originally from a site called “Ships Nostalgia” i saved it because i loved the photographs of an old engineering works, i had no idea it would be so popular, really glad you enjoyed it. From the days when the UK made everything! Phil

[@lawrenceogden2162]

@@philhermetic LOVED THE VIDEO, ANY MORE PLEASE UPLOAD I APPRECIATE SEEING THESE MACHINES USED TO MANUFACTURE THESE LARGE ENGINES.

[@johnbarnes7274]

I was there at that time as an apprentice 16 year old and loved every minute and knew all of those guys on the machines. I worked on a Webster and bennet in machine shop, turret bay, tool room , sub assembly, and the brass machine shop. I had the job fitting dowel pins in entablature feet. Fitting tell tale temperature fuses in all pistons. So customers could be told they screwed up overheating the engine for insurance. We got plenty of repairs in so this was important. Watched stud bolts being rolled on their thread instead of machining the thread. Fitted the cast iron bearing rings in the pistons and preparing all upper and lower pistons for the Lloyds man to check hydraulic test and to put the stamp of Lloyd’s stamp on the job I had help complete, sense of pride you know for having the passion of doing ones best. Beef leaving to join Furness Ships I worked and watched the start up of the first J type Doxfords. Also met Percy Jackson. In the drawing office. And met Duke of Edinburgh on his 1960s visit to Doxfords. Oh such memories not forgotten......I was known as apprentice as powerful Pierre, as an apprentice I could swing a 14 lb hammer in close quarters in the assembly of the engine in the crack case, hitting the massive flogging spanner until the hammer bounce back on me. They eventually brought in slotted round nut and used a hydraulic jack and wrench. Used thar as well but still felt that I needed t whack the nut more by hand. Since those days I learned the art of hudraulic bolt tensioning and all my bolt tightening with a hammer vanished instantly. Any way I am blowing a trumpet but don’t care cos I did all that as a young person in the 60s and miss the guys and the exitment the buzz, the sense of acheivment and for the skill I was taught.

[@philhermetic]

Thanks for that wonderful piece John! Realy glad you liked the slideshow, I first saw it on "ships nostalgia" which might have some more to interest you as well. Best wishes, Phil

[@boydovens4180]

Yes its hard to believe that in less than 30 years , being leaders in heavy and light Engineering this country fell by the wayside , All skill and brain work , no CNCs there . Most people have no idea how good we were .

[@user-gv3bt5mi3o]

@@boydovens4180 HELLO my father knew how good you were he was british merchant navy engineer from the 60's he kept the doxford engines going while at sea , makes me sad we lost engineering expertise we were the best on the world one time sadly lost my father to covid in the same ward as me i had bad covid had a day to live , to all past engineers i salute you in the uk.rip dad.

[@tismeagen684]

Fascinating images of Doxford engineering shops, I sailed as a young engineer in the early 1960's on MV Tremayne fitted with a 4 cylinder Doxford opposed engine. Fond memories.

[@carlwilson1772]

Just found this Phil, superb footage. I think the picture at 1:22 was used as a cover for the Meccano Magazine sometime in the mid 50s to early 60s. I have seen machine tools on this scale, in the machine shop of the Arno drydock in Dunkirk. Some of the machines were German, and were of WW2 vintage, having been installed by the Germans to work on their capital ships there. In 2009 when I was there the French were still using them daily. As for the reliability or otherwise of Doxford engines, have no experience of them. However, I do have experience with the phenomena of people who do not follow maintenance instructions correctly or understand how things work properly. This leads to downtime and to a product getting a totally undeserved reputation for unreliablity. The bit made out of metal is not usually the problem, its the bit made out of meat.

[@johnbarnes7274]

Thank you Phil, for your reply, I will put together my history of my engineering life at Doxfords Pallion Sunderland with some sea experience. I liked your video good for you to keep North East history and UK industry alive.

[@philhermetic]

The crazy thing was that I had no video to put up that week, think it was maybe lockdown, and so I put that together from my hard drive. I had found the pics on the ships nostalgia website and been amazed at the huge machines and factory. It is the most watched video on my site by a large margin! I went on a school metalwork trip in about 1965 to Park Gate steelworks in Rotherham, and I wish some pics of this quality existed of that truly awesome steelworks! It is amazing to watch a film of iron being tapped from a blast furnace, but to be actually there watching it happen I will never forget. Phil

[@mikeblythe9906]

I can remember as a young lad of around 15 or 16 walking through machine shops like this for the first time (May have been Doxfords or NEM on the Tyne) and seeing these machines ....couldn't believe the size. I was serving my apprenticeship as a Marine Instrument Maker and the machines we used were like sewing machines compared to these.....Nice video.

[@philhermetic]

Thanks for the comment Mike,, when I was about 14, we had a school metalwork trip to Park gate steelworks at Rotheram, and went right through the plant, from blast furnaces and watching tapping, ladles , open hearth furnaces and on to the rolling mill, to watch white hot steel girders shooting back and forth through the forming rolls at breakneck speed, and then on to Moore and Wright's in Sheffield . A day I will never forget!. Phil.

[@keithralfs5190]

Ha Ha, similarly British workshops were positively "Dickensian", compared with the MAN workshops in Germany (Switzerland) or Japan which were more like operating theatres, beautifully clean and precise

[@verdelldelap2195]

It all looks so familiar. Worked on Fairbanks Morse 8 1/8 opposed piston engines back in the 70's in the navy building. Just wasn't quite as big as this. Power generation and submarines.

[@JonDingle]

The magnificent engineering of the Englishman!

[@philhermetic]

It is and sad to say that magnificent works is now probably a housing estate or a frogging shopping centre! Damn them, damn them all

[@JonDingle]

@@philhermetic I second you on that. It is disgraceful what destruction politicians have done to our culture, manufacturing and country. And they are doing even more damage in current times!

[@keithralfs5190]

I was Engineer on Doxford built "Economy" mv Journalist - 10,000tons, 10knots on 10tons fuel/day, all steam auxiliaries - Brilliant - Ah those were the days

[@philhermetic]

Thanks for the comment Keith, it is good to see that so many are having good memories about these vessels. I only posted this up because tof the men and the machines, and never realised how many would like it, and have fond memories of the engines! Thanks for taking the time to comment! Phil, East Yorkshire.

[@keithralfs5190]

@@philhermetic Also mv New Guinea Chief with China Navigation trading through the Islands out of NZ - really beautiful engine with more conventional fuel injection (Jerk pump) - very much operating like the proverbial "Swiss Watch"

[@anthonywarrener1881]

What a wonderful sight !

[@MrJpsspecial]

great stuff ,sad to see history of a great engineering works & that's its all gone

[@philhermetic]

It is sad, but they went from being the top dog to also rans. I do not know what caused it, certainly competition form the european companies, but they they lost out to the japanese, who are now losing out to the koreans, and so on it goes. It is not a matter of building the best anymore, it is a matter of celivering good enough, on time, and at the right price. Britain must innovate or die! Thanks for the comment. Phil

[@MrJpsspecial]

@@philhermetic Hi. Phil. I have spent many a happy & sometimes not so happy fixing & repairing bits on Doxford engines at sea & once even had to change a combustion space unit that had cracked middle of the the Atlantic on the equator bloody hot & tiring that was., also had plenty of practice scraping white metal bearings.

[@philhermetic]

@@MrJpsspecial Hi John, for the benefit of others as well as me, do you have any experiences to share about the quality and reliability of Doxford engines, It seems they have their fans, and also their detractors, wHat do you think about them? Thanks for commenting! Phil.

[@MrJpsspecial]

@@philhermetic Hi Phil. my first trip was on the Demeterton with 4 cyl J type engine on a round trip to China in the '60s we did have some trouble with the motor by the way of flaking white metal from the side rod bottom ends & also broken piston rings in bad weather the engine gave a lot of vibration & I reckon that did not go well with side rod bearings. or the cross head bearings as well neadless to say we were kept busy & also kept on our toes as well. did more trips on it also on Doxfords with the swinging link pipes, more fun and games with that one too.

[@lawrenceogden2162]

brilliant video, sailed on a doxford four cylinder with side scavenge pump shaftesbury owned by houlder bros of london ,chief engineer arnie hamer aka dr diesel

[@retardtiger]

How many scavenge pumps? 6 cylinders engines I was on had 3, on cylinders 1-3.

[@lawrenceogden2162]

@@retardtiger one for the four cylinders

[@KeithE-ti6gd]

I remember being on a visit to Doxfords as an Apprentice and seeing turner with a set of outside calipers almost as big as he was

[@philhermetic]

I originally saw these pics on a site called “ships nostalgia” and saved them for myself, Then one week i had flu and didn’t make a video i posted them up instead!. It is tragic that all these machine shops and workshops from the days when Britain was the workshop of the world have passed almost unnoticed, and no doubt many of them unrecorded. I am glad you enjoyed it! Phil

[@billsmith305]

I was at sea with the dox', engine, enjoyed every moment. an engineer.

[@philhermetic]

Thanks Bill, lovely comment!

[@pairojeans]

All history now, nothing left I am afraid.

[@thornwarbler]

Superb thanks for putting that together. Sad that it and all the skills are gone, great shame.

[@philhermetic]

Did you watch the video, I cocked the link up, I wanted it clickable, but gave up! www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/doxford-j-engine I swear some of them are the same people! Problem is you can't go on making engines like that forever, and Companies like Sulzer and Deutz started to take their orders. By all accounts they were very reliable, and massively over engineered. There us a story about on the net about one engine in a ship where the prop hit something, and it twisted the crankshaft out of alignment, they sent a crew out from Sunderland to heat up the crankweb, and get the shaft back into line, it worked, and gave no more problems! Them wer't days!

[@HELLO-iq5rb]

Utterly fascinating Phil. Great quality photos too. Tragic that all this is dying out ....or already gone probably. (?)

[@johnbarnes7274]

1959 to 1967 office boy to estimating and contracting department then started my apprenticeship on the works,. Worked for Paxton south and Percy Jackson. I knew all the men in the videos as new boy with Doxfords. I worked in the tool room, main machine shop on Webster and bennet vertical borer, lots of good guys there, some guys blind working machines. Sub assembly, charge hand Charlie buckle gave me a hard time but I put together the p type pistons to Lloyd’s test man. One of my jobs was to fit the temperature fail safe fuse in every piston, for insurance purposes.I look back on this with great respect on my engineering life. I did go to sea on LBD Doxfords Price Line an Pacific Steam Navigation, the soap we were supplied with purchased amazing things from the native dug out canoos while hove too somewhere overseas.. main point hove too in medi emergency stop in the 60s near Israel. Off watch noticed leather bags in alleyway marked Douglas Bader. MV Black Prince.

[@johnbarnes7274]

I have more experience in MV Black Prince might make Daniel Craig put out a bit, through Panama Canal, North passage Central America Punta Areanas, big ship moving through tiny swamp canals. Ending up in wide river astern a East German Ship at anchor.. We contacted the Russian crew to a soccer match on shore. The place was S..t hole but the pitch was Wembley class.Our crew me included were thrashed be The German Russians. We invited them on board our ship for hospitalities. They came off worse for wear, our ship received a severe bolloking from a UK agent

[@johnbarnes7274]

We think you are at it

[@philhermetic]

@@johnbarnes7274 Hi John, I have no connection with Doxfords, I got the pics from shipsnostalgia, I was just amazed at the scale of the works, and as you say, all those machines, and all those skilled men, gone for good. What a disgusting shortsighted waste of skills and equipment. I am based in east Yorkshire, You should write your story about Doxfords and put it on the net! Phil

[@stuarth43]

I look at Doxford history, the man who designed the engine was simply brilliant, maybe the term brilliant is nowhere near enough

[@keithralfs5190]

Based on a Junkers engine given to Doxford as part of WW1 repatriations

[@keithralfs5190]

Was a German, the technology was given to Doxford as war preparations

[@stuarth43]

thanks Phil

[@fromgermany271]

Sulzer engines are from Switzerland. Not everything that sells better than a British product is labeled „made in Germany“. Obviously the engineers, that do not have a domestic coast are outperforming the ones from islands in marine engines.

[@philhermetic]

Both Sulzer and B&W (Burmeister & Wain, a German/English company) built Doxford engines under license from Doxford before going on to develop their “own” designs

[@fromgermany271]

@@philhermetic oh I see, they licensed a Junkers patent and took over a former Sulzer engineer and then used a time machine. Did they also tell Rudolf how to diesel?

[@philhermetic]

@@fromgermany271 the Doxford design of opposed piston engines only used 1 crankshaft, it was unique and nothing like the Junkers design

[@philhermetic]

First Doxford opposed piston engine was built in 1913,just a few years before the Junkers patent!

[@fromgermany271]

@@philhermetic even Encyclopædia Britannica showed a picture of the Junkers engine in 1911. They did not wait for the local version. Junkers has 2 cranks, because it was having much higher revs. Wikipedia even tells the story of Junkers personally giving advice on the island to get the prototype to work. BTW, you forgot the Swiss engineer. Look all over the world people took ideas from others and made products out of it. There is not that single island of geniuses. In latest history there was the French century, the British century, there was even a German one. There’s a (British) YTer showing how French invented machining and shows a German book about everything having to do with metal from 15nn. With pictures of lates, screws, even screwdrivers. I will now leave the house and drive away with an engine made in Coventry, even though I live very close to the road where Berta Benz drove the first car.

[@casspirmk6338]

Well, if it is so good, why it is so dead? Good was Sulzer, MAN, B&W. They are alive and kicking. There was the most overcomplicated, nightmarish , not reliable engine ever built. Sea curse for engine crew. Sweet memories, I understand, but as seaman with 30 years of experience under belt, cannot take it as it was told.

[@keithralfs5190]

When they were running well there was a certain "romance" Spherical bearings and water-leaking "swing-links" guaranteed "clean" oil and those ph**** Gravinor (spelling) purifiers

[@billsmith305]

nazi

[@user-nr2xw8hy7s]

Grainers were oil mist detectors , the purifiers could well have been Sharples , haven't forgotten them , no matter how hard I try . Doxfords 56 to 61 , retired from sea 2005 .

[@user-nr2xw8hy7s]

GRAVINER oil mist detectors.

[@billdoodson4232]

I worked on a number of Doxfords in my younger days, but never sailed deep sea on one. They had a number of shall I say "unusual design choices." One being a type common rail fuel injection system, which could be a bit "leaky." I mainly sailed on B&W's and Sulzers, a Swiss design. I by far preferred the Sulzers.😊

[@guttormg1208]

A lost art, building highly unreliable marine engines.. But love the pictures!!

[@philhermetic]

Please tell me more about the unreliabilty! the website these pics came from (Shipsnostalgia.com) is peopled by the engineers who used to run them, and they had nothing but good things to say about them! Phil

[@stuarth43]

you know nothing, nothing at all, tell us what you designed and built in your miserable whining life

[@guttormg1208]

Hard to convince the members of the Flat Earth Society that the world is a globe... Even for its time Doxfords where unreliable. 30 years as a marine engineer, many of them working with guys actually having real life experience with Doxfords (and other monsters like double-acting MANs and B&Ws with opposing pistons) I have heard plenty good and fun stories, non of them involving how reliable a Doxford was...

[@keithralfs5190]

@@guttormg1208 The mv Doric had two of them "interesting" challenge

[@keithralfs5190]

@@guttormg1208 I sailed on a double acting MAN manufactured in 1943 - was actually a very reliable engine, the challenges were created by poor maintenance and lack of understanding of how things work - My experience with Harland & Wolff opposed piston and double acting engines helped when overcoming the MAN challenges

[@retardtiger]

I started my engine fitter apprenticeship in Fairfield’s Govan just as they’d ended building Doxfords & started on Sulzers. Later I sailed on two Texaco tankers with Doxford engines, 6 cylinder 760LB with beam scavenge pumps & all steam recip driven auxiliaries. Loved every minute!

[@retardtiger]

PS The two Doxfords I sailed with, one made at Wallsend, the other by David Rowan Glasgow