SD 102

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Keith.P
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Re: SD 102

Post by Keith.P »

So lets talk about the 102 then.
I was looking through some stuff about that Anzani for another post and came across some Amal paperwork pertaining to the type 46 carburettor, which is also fitted to the early Anzani SS, showing the different types of chokes and carburettor covers.
In my ignorance, I thought that the carburettor trumpet was made by BS, when it's clearly available as a amal made part.
With the wartime motors, all that told you that it was a seagull motor was the tank logo and the crank case seagull logo, under the flywheel, I think.
Not that this helps dating anything, castings are expensive, but we seem to have had a lot of changes over a short period, like the Seagull rope pull, the gear lever, carburettor cover and transom, which is a lot of new parts at one time for a small company.
Looking at advertising for the post war 102, it has all the new seagull logo parts.
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Charles uk
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Re: SD 102

Post by Charles uk »

I have my doubts about Seagull logo use during the war.

10,000 logos & the labour to stick them on, might have cost as much as 25 complete SD's (0.25% of the total cost) & therefore difficult to justify the expenditure at that time, when it looks like they were brush painted green or grey as they went into the stores.

We have seen no hard evidence to back up either school of thought.
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
Keith.P
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Re: SD 102

Post by Keith.P »

As suggested to me, seagull only assembled the wartime motors, which sounds odd.
They went to seagull and placed an ordered for 10,000 motors and they just put them together, why go to BS at all, any number of factory's could have put then together.
At best they were given the order, given the access to materials, used their own castings to make the motors, you don't give a contract to an outboard company for them to just put them together.
Late 40's seagull started the concept of the little forty, with what, they must have had the money to do it, more likely the money they made from the 10,000 order plus the spares order they had.
Why did they put copper coolie hats, bronze levers, brass carburettors on the motors and why did they not all have the same brass, bronze and copper parts.
Why not put on a tank logo, they were asked to produce motors, what happened to them after that was not the concern of BS, they didn't paint them green before they went out the door.
The ad that I have seen for the new post war AC 102, with Seagull storm cowl and new standard type transom with thumb screws, doesn't sound like a company with no money, I do wonder what it did cost to order 10'000 motors and parts and iron transoms, I bet it wasn't cheap, maybe that's why we have never seen one in action, they were too expensive to take out of the box. :P
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NaughtyBits
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Re: SD 102

Post by NaughtyBits »

Wouldn't it make sense that in initially trying to meet the order, patenting storm cowls, gear levers, etc. wouldn't be of much concern right away... Same with tank logos, maybe..?

Also, shortly into the war effort, some materials that would have been initially cheaper & readily available, became more scarce & expensive. Wouldn't that explain some of the differences noted so far between early & late SD's, such as the change to ali for coolie hats, etc. Re: tank saddles, similarly, it might have become cheaper to stamp out brass ones (even given materials cost increase) over casting the thicker ali ones..? Or something as simple as that particular factory ceased making them for any number of reasons.

Given parts were coming in from multiple factories to be assembled, you also wouldn't expect that change to be quite so clear cut and would see some overlap of parts for a while, I'd think.

Just guesses, but seems to make sense to me, given what we're learning from you fellas.
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charlesp
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Re: SD 102

Post by charlesp »

Gosh, Keith, a lot of question there!

I also understand that Way-Hope was approached and asked if he could supply a large number of motors for the Ministry, and he said yes.

That made perfect sense. British Seagull - or at least the two directors at the time and possibly a handful of others - had premises. They had the designs, they had experience, and they had contacts. Crucially neither of them had been taken into the Forces, so they were available. A great deal of manufacturing capacity in the UK was already working on government contracts.

So they did as they had done before the war, they bought in carburettors and magnetos, they had someone else cast the gearbox casings and the crankcase halves, they had someone else machine the crankshafts. And so on. They made their own exhausts (in Verwood) and they drilled into the castings, and they put the things together in sheds on the North side of the old lifting bridge in Poole. A local company made the crates.

The Little Model Forty must indeed have taken money to put into production, but they had money. They had, after all, just made 10,000 motors and the spares to go with them and supplied them to the Ministry. I remember calculating that at pre-war retail prices that lot would have cost roughly the same as a Type 1 Hunt Class destroyer before its armament was fitted. That's a lot of money. Quite enough to put the post-war 102's into production, which of course were nothing more than a better finished SD/P with a smaller magneto and a skeletal bracket (the latter quite rapidly superseded by a better version).

The country was short of money in 1946, people were short of jobs, and exports were desperately needed. When you think about it most manufacturing was producing stuff that had little peacetime use, but British Seagull were making something that was essentially both a leisure item for the boating fraternity and a working tool for fishermen and the colonies, so much so that a few short years later they bought for cash the land at Fleets Bridge and built their factory there. No bank loan involved.

As to the copper versus aluminium for the magneto covers, the aluminium versus bronze levers, the different carburettor finishes, I have no idea. I dread to think how many hours the other (less handsome) Charles and I have spent discussing those matters, with absolutely no conclusions.
Keith.P
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Re: SD 102

Post by Keith.P »

Much appreciated Charles, If you don't ask questions, you will never get an answer and as time goes by, the likelihood of finding an answer is getting less and less possible.
I did wonder how well they did out of the government contract, which helped them continue after the war.
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Oyster 49
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Re: SD 102

Post by Oyster 49 »

Very interesting to hear what Charles P has to say. He has done a lot of research as we all know. One thing I have never quite understood, when did engines stop being produced at Sunbeamland, and where did production move to?
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charlesp
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Re: SD 102

Post by charlesp »

Wish I knew the answer to that.

Another question - what do we define as "produced at"?
Keith.P
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Re: SD 102

Post by Keith.P »

I was under the impression that the outboard side of Sunbeamland got bought out and became British Seagull.
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Oyster 49
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Re: SD 102

Post by Oyster 49 »

Yes, but I'm curious when Sunbeamland stopped producing engines. I imagine sometime around the time the British Seagull company was born.
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Hugz
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Re: SD 102

Post by Hugz »

For discussion purposes is it possible the copper motors were for the war department 10K and the other 2600+ motors were ali and for the domestic market? Have we seen any ali ones with green or grey paint apart from one SDP?
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seagull101
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Re: SD 102

Post by seagull101 »

Hugz wrote:Have we seen any ali ones with green or grey paint apart from one SDP?
My one!
headdownarseup
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Re: SD 102

Post by headdownarseup »

I sold a steel fuel tank i had at the time to A-J a couple of years ago. That was painted grey but not sure what was underneath the grey paint!

It's now painted black and is sitting on one of his SD's if my memory serves me well.

I know of 4 SD's that have the remnants of green paint on them. One of them is Jacob's, but there must be others out there.
I have a feeling that Hugo will find some in time.

Jon
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Hugz
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Re: SD 102

Post by Hugz »

Jacob, yours has the brass exhaust, brass clutch lever and probably brass butterfly nut for tiller. So l consider yours a brass one. The ali ones had chrome exhaust, ali clutch lever and ali coolie hat and plated nut.

Yours is a little different as having an ali coolie hat though another has turned up the same and a late model one too.

Ali = Aluminium
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seagull101
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Re: SD 102

Post by seagull101 »

Sorry hugo i thought you were talking about coolie covers!
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