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Model of pile driver

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Model of pile driver
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A pile driver is an engineering device which drives wooden piles into the ground as foundations for buildings or bridges. This demonstration model of a pile driver was based on the design by the Huguenot watchmaker James Valoue for Charles Lobelye's pile driver. The pile driver was used for the caissons of Westminster Bridge in London around 1740. The model dates from around 1750.

The original falling weight was dragged up to the highest point of this machine by the capstan, or cogged wheel in the middle, turned by horses; this wheel has a fly to prevent the horses falling when the weight is discharged. The horses go round, the rope is wound about the drum, the weight is drawn to the top, where tongs come between inclined planes, and gradually opened, so that the weight drops on to the pile below, driving it into the ground.

There was a wide public interest in designs for the eventual construction of a new crossing of the Thames at Westminster in the 1730s. Charles Lobelye's pile driver was used to such effect in the building of the bridge that the Bridge Committee gave Valoue a premium of £105 in gratitude for his design.

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