Please note that this is a photoduplicated reproduction of the original. The accompanying images were scanned from a reprint, not the original.
The Skinner Uniflow steam engine was the ultimate in steam valve construction and the most efficient steam engine ever designed and built. The final commercial evolution of the Uniflow engine came in the late 1930s and 1940s, with the development of the Compound Uniflow Marine Steam Engine, provided efficiencies approaching contemporary diesels. Many lake freighters and car ferrys on the Great Lakes, and towboats on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were equipped with Skinner engines, several of which are still operating. During World War II, the Casablanca class escort carriers -- designed from the keel up as escort carriers, and the largest series of aircraft carriers built -- used two 5-cylinder Skinner Uniflow engines. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the immortal special task force, Taffy 3, included five Casablanca class carriers.
Le Grand Skinner founded the Skinner Engine Company in 1868., with the original manufacturing plant in Herkimer, New York. By 1873 the compnay had grown so large that it needed much more land to expand its manufacturing operations, which was found in the city of Erie, Pennsylvania. When Le Grand Skinner died in 1922, his son, Allen Skinner, assumed control of the company. Unlike the engineer his father had been, Allen Skinner was more of a marketer. Which was just as well, because Skinner engines were of such quality and superior economic advantage, that Allen Skinner was able to implement the unique sales approach of offering to sell a potential customer his engine requirement for only one dollar -- plus all of the savings that resulted from the installation of a Skinner engine. This ploy sold engines, and also made money. Lots of money.
In 1949, control of the company passed to Allen Skinner’s son, named after the founder, Le Grand Skinner. Of course, this was the twilight of steam power, but Skinner engines were so well crafted and so efficient, that orders for Skinner steam engines continued to come in up until the late 1980s. Though Skinner had some success in other lines of work, particularly in manufacturing rubber mixing machines, and Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton pumps, the Skinner Engine Co. declared bankruptcy and was liquidated in March, 2003.
These instructions will be of immense value not just to anyone restoring and operating a Skinner engine, but any large stationary engine, steam or gas, since there are some quite detailed suggestions for building the base.
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