The Southern Cross Story

And from 10 years ago on the forum

www.hcvc.com.au/forum/salewanted/8255-spiders-anyone

Book issss by Rob Laurent as posted in my reply.
Yes Swishy the very same foundry. They made a bit of almost everything. Nothing was off limits to them. They did have a unique way of thinking on how to re-invent things to make them cheaper to buy but not loose quality. An exampleof this is the 1 cooling fin less on the barrel of the farm pumper engine. Doesn't sound like much but do 100,000 + and you have saved heaps. Windmill towers were 3 legs and not 4 like nearly everyone elses.

To see the best collection of SX engines , pumps and some windmills visit the Highfields Heritage Village just out of Toowoomba (15kms) . There is a large dedicated shed to all the SX machinery ,from memory , all owned by the one bloke. I think he is the caretaker , living on site. There is to many attractions for me to list them all. I was allowed to camp there over night for a very reasonable fee. Included shower and toilet. Ring ahead.
You will need to allow a full day to take in all the attractions , including damper and Billy tea for morning tea.
I have the SX book by Rob Laurent and can say it is the best book on SX products i have ever come across. Dave.

Who now can make break drums if Toowoomba is out of the picture??
cya

cobbadog wrote:

Windmill towers were 3 legs and not 4 like nearly everyone elses.

& the Tower Bracing was bits of heavy Wire/light Rod as apposed to Flat Steel on Comet Towers..

Thanks for the information on the Southern Cross book I’ll chase up a copy
They did have four post towers available but there was never many about the thing with the three post towers was they were a lot stronger and after climbing around on both over the years the three post towers felt a lot better to be up on on a windy day

Cheers Bluey

Swishman theres a mob in Bendigo will make them, one off, what ever you need

I'm fascinated by the plane they made, I have the book and it is a good read
Pretty sure I read they made steam locos for South Australia and had to disassemble them to get them thru the tunnels down to Brisbane to ship to Adelaide
They werent shy to have ago until the last generation took over and just didnt want to invest in the company or new products at least I seam to remember it been like that in the book

Anyone know much about that plane they made ?

Paul

China can make your brake drums Swishman!
The story of the plane is discussed in the book along with some test flights. Now I might be way off course but something says that Mervin Richardson of Victa fame was involved as well. Not a lot about the plane in the book but is mentioned and it now hangs in the main foyer at the airport just west of Toowoomba. The steam trains were a part of the manufacturing and as mentioned the Foundary would have a go at almost anything. One short story was on how they would test the HP rating of engines. There was a contract out for a certian size HP engine rewquired and a lot of them. They had engines just under the rating so they would increase the RPM's and run it. This was done down in the railway yard where they had a bunker to hide in, set the engine running and increase the RPM. Kept doing this to achieve the desired rating then out of curiousity kept increasing the revs. You guessed it blew apart. The flywheel travelled the furthest and made it to the end of the yard with bits of engine everywhere.

Now they grey matter is stirring from reading the book
The loo's at foundry were in the middle of the yard, the walls only went half height so nobody could go in there and bludge on the bosses time as you couldn't hide

Dont think that would go down well today

It is a great book, I remember picking it up and not putting it down until I had finished

Paul

Some photos I took at the Oaky Museum some years ago, sorry about the quality.