Chris Spollen - The Tempelton Submarine

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The Tempelton Submarine

posted:July 4, 2011

A very old man in a New Jersey bar late one night last summer gave this drawing to me. He said that this was a drawing he had made form what he remembered of theTempelton Submarine forged in a Bayonne shipyard .He also claimed to have worked on her hull at the iron works there in Bayonne .He told me that he had actually known her designer Frank Templeton the “Crazy Englishman”. It was from this very drawing that I was able to recreate this almost now obscure steam diving machine.

Raising steam in the main boilers on board the Templeton Submarine with her sites set for a departure on the evenings tide for ports of yet unknown origin.

A Lewyt company in house prototype for a mechanical Dog Vacuum summer 1952,very rare

General Electrics Prototype GE - Bot 1962 created on the heels of the run away success of Mattel’s Mister machine, this working prototype never went into actual production. The General Electric Bot was an early attempt at a remotely controlled robot for the home and the ever-growing boomers children’s toy market.

Under use what you have, I have found that the back of old sketchpads when soaked in water can be molded and re -formed, once dry hold they hold their new form and are both light and strong.

The Crefton Steam Rocket This steam-powered rocket was an early attempt at an ill-fated space flight. A privately built rocket employing the use of pure steam as a sole means of propulsion in an attempt to reach the boarders of outer space. The Crefton was a privately funded project financed by the somewhat eccentric inventor James Crefton. He was a near –do well son of a famous British industrialist Sir James Crefton Sr. Records indicate that this machine was constructed on a small estate sometime during the mid nineteen thirties just outside of Brighton England. The rocket itself was quite innovative for her time she employed two coal fired copper boilers and produced enormous amounts of copious steam. However not enough to lift this highly ornamental machine constructed of both wood and iron into the heavens. In fact after several failed and near disastrous attempts she never actually never lifted off the ground.