Another Marston

[charlesp]

Chris came down this afternoon, complete with an LLS which he had restored, together with his grandfather's Marston OA.

We played with the LLS for a while and soon had her fired up - this was Chris's first restoration, and we were both pleased to see a healthy performance and a really excellent flow of water.

With that out of the way, we had a good look at the OA. This is a long shaft motor, and is in really lovely original condition. Lots of fasteners that are as good as new, tank with no rust, wing nuts all present and correct, and generally very honest and clean all over. This one has been used in fresh water all its life, was purchased new in 1933 and retired in 1981!

Here she is:



Nice chrome fuel pipe, carb top and intake.

Interesting height adjustment here complete with wingnut and swinging arm:



Didn't get her fired up, but all in good time. Nice to see this one back in captivity, especially still in the family.

[John@sos]

Interesting to see an OA with top feed carb and pepper pot intake.

Have just found 1931 advert that shows bottom feed card and no pepper pot, just the straight intake. what's the number/year on this one?

Like the height adjuster, bit better engineered than todays!

Regards,
John
SOS

[charlesp]

It's OA 601 which probably puts it at 1933.

From the ones I've seen I am becoming convinced that no two were the same.

[John@sos]

I guess that would be right for a 1933 model then. The First OA's were simpler! (Bearing in mind mine is 1931.) It has no frills!

Do not know why the change to top feed carbs, then back to botom feed later though!

Regards,
John
SOS

[charlesp]

If you look at all the photos of all the survivors there are numerous questions...

Why do some blocks have fins while others were plain?

The carb question ?

Why do away with reserve type fuel taps?

Why do away with reverse gears ( I don't believe that 'unseamanlike' stuff).

And the biggest puzzle for me - why did they introduce the Century? can anyone explain that? Same capacity, bit less power, no significant weight advantage, more machining, and noisier..

Perhaps after all the carb question is the same thing that we all face every time we pop round to Sainsbury's. Sometimes they have your favourite brand, but sometimes there's an offer on something else...

[40TPI]

Thanks for taking the effort to put this up Charles. The height adjuster is decidedly attractive and worth a little thought on how to duplicate. (Non commercial!) Heck of a lot of machining from solid as an ML7 project but possible.
The words "swinging arm" suggest a hinge on the other side to the wing nut, so making a quick release. I'm guessing the casting halves are essentially identical and the far side has a short fixed length bar pinned at each end through the casting lugs. Have I guessed correctly? A pic is worth the usual thousand words and takes the guessing away. Do you have a pic of the other side please Charles?

[charlesp]

As requested.

The other Charles and myself have discussed this component. As you can see the colour of the metal is identical to the rest of the motor - I think there's a good chance this is original.

And you're right - so much nicer than the later versions; let us know if you complete one.

Here it is from the back:



and another view:



I really like the way all the various components of this OA have all the same colour, same patina.

Hopefully we'll have photos of her running before too long. The spark is a big fat blue one, and she has lots of compression.

Caution prevented an extended effort to fire her up...

[Charles UK]

Charles in reply to your questions

Blocks finned or plain, The vast majority of Marston Cylinders are finned. Perhaps the small number of unfinned cylinders were a cheaper later casting supplied as a replacement for a rust damaged or worn out early cylinders.

The carb question, you have already answered, It looked like Marston were producing less than 500 units a year, so you wouldn't be buying carbs by the 10,000, you'd almost have to take what was available on the shelf & modify the bend in the fuel pipe.

Fuel taps, Marston only seemed to use the reserve type fuel tap, so it looks like this was a Way-Hope / Pinnenger decision to save a few pennies by moving to a fuel tap that was mass produced in much larger quantities, perhaps the Ministry of Supply specified the Ewarts tap, as it is such a sturdy design & very easy to repair in the field.

The doing away with the Harper FNR gear box, was probably a decision forced by the prewar preparations, the war & the post war economy, 12 to 15 years later all the tooling would have been lost, most of the skilled workers were gone and the customers would buy whatever they could find during this period of rationing. Most of the customers would have been fishermen, who had little need for a luxury that would increase the cost of a work tool by 30%.

The century question was I feel a sympton of the mid fifties, people were starting to get money in their pockets, Bill Hayley was starting to make music, rationing was about to end, do you want a prewar design or the latest model?
Seagull must have been right as the 60s were part of the assent to the record production figures of the early 70s.

[RickUK]

Interesting discussion points, but I don't think it is worth trying to read too much into the fuel taps, carb feeds etc. I think the reserve fuel tap was as standard as the Ewart version at the time, but I imagine that as soon as the reserve became necessary, there was between five and ten minutes' running time left - OK - enough to reach the shore if you were not far away, or to give notice of impending panic!
I have two BMB outboards from about 1932 and 1934- both with top fuel feeds, which are necessary for the float bowls to clear the transom bracket, so nothing particularly unique about them.
FNR - how desirable were they for the extra weight and cost? There wasn't the boating population of today, nor anything like the finger pontoons and stuff to do cunning manouevres up to - I guess forwad motion stopped either by running up a beach or by hitting the boat the smaller boat was acting as tender to, or by twiddling aforesaid fuel tap. Rick

[ChrisBird]

Hi All,
Just wanted to say a huge public thank you to Charles Palfreeman for helping me with my two motors. The LLS started first pull. He and I have talked further about the Marston and definitely want to go ahead and get this back to running order, though he thinks it might not be too big a job. Going through my grandfather's photogrpah albums I have found a few pictures of this motor in use when brand new, and some later ones in the late 40s / early 50s. At some point I hope to scan these and put some up here. Thanks again Charles for all your work and encouragement!

[charlesp]

Thanks Chris, it was a most enjoyable afternoon.

And thanks for the photos, which arrived here this morning. They are superb, and I'm sure posting them on this site would meet with general approval.

Really great to be able to see that OA throughout its life, and the women it seems to attract!