August 2013

June Show: Snowy and Smokey

By Paul Harvey

By the time you are reading this, the June Show is just a lot of great memories and photos.  After some threatening skies on Thursday, the rest of the weekend turned out fantastic.  Weather was sunny, warm, and dry! The museum did not have the expected rain and mud, so typical of Coolspring, and there were so many surprises to our visitors that you will soon see.  The off-site parking areas filled up early but the shuttle bus saved these visitors long walks.  We had good food, excellent exhibitors, great flea-market and a very happy attendance; all needed for a great show. 

Probably the biggest surprise, even to me, was to see the 600 hp Snow engine run.  It has been so long since we spent the winter removing the engine and placing it in safe storage.  A dedicated crew spent many hours, no- years, doing the restoration.  And now it finally paid off!  About 10 pm on Tuesday June 11, the Snow crew started buzzing around the engine.  A group of about 45 gathered and knew what was about to happen.  See Photo 1. With Chris at the controls and Ben and Mark closely watching, the big engine started to turn over on compressed air.  About the second or third revolution, a distinctive "thump" was felt more than heard.  The Snow had come to life!  It came up to the governor and ran long enough for all to get good videos and see who would be first to have it on the internet.  I'm sure that within fifteen minutes it could be seen starting around the world.  With further tuning and adjusting, it ran on a schedule for all to see during the show.   What a great surprise!     

Next to the Snow, in Pat's Place, another surprise took place.  Photo 2 shows the restored 50 hp White and Middleton engine that John Wilcox saved from the Bremen Station of the Buckeye Pipe Line Co. in 1958.  It originally pumped crude oil along with the 12x24 model 4 Klein in the Power Technology Building. This massive engine has 7 1/2 foot flywheels.  It has finally been restored to its original beauty and was  ready to run after so many years.   Now having all the pipe work done, it ran after each Snow run to keep the visitors on the hill happy.  It was built in 1897 and ran long after the Klein was retired.

Photo 3 shows the 150 hp Hall Scott engine, built in Berkeley, CA coming to life.  It is displayed in the Friend's Exhibition Hall and originally powered a self propelled rail car that carried passengers and baggage.  The rail car could also pull two freight cars and had a reversing transmission so that it did not have to turn around at the end of the line. Built circa 1910, it had been displayed in the Ford Museum for many years before finally arriving here.   Although still in original condition, it had not run for over 50 years.  Another great surprise to our visitors. 

Back in the early 1970s I had acquired a Sanderson Cyclone self propelled drilling machine, built in Orrville, Ohio,  from an elderly gentleman near Gibsonia, PA.  It is a number 14 Junior and was designed to drill "shot" holes for blasting rock and or coal.  It was in very sad shape and really falling apart.  Ownership was transferred to Herb and Martin and they labored over it for 15 years restoring it to new condition.  It is powered by a vertical Cook engine, built in Delaware, Ohio, and now perhaps the only self propelled machine operating.  They displayed it at the show, Photo 4, and it operated very well drilling a shallow hole for all to see.  It was a joy for me to see an old memory alive and well.     

Over the past few shows, the cooling water for the engines had been getting very hot.  Water from the tanks on the hill circulates through all the engines in the buildings and returns to a sump tank where the Pump House pumps it back into the tanks for recirculation.  The old cooler had not been in operation for many years, but thanks to Rob and Nate, it  ran 15 hours a day to keep our engine cooling water at the correct temperature.  Photo 5 shows the 4 hp Renfrew, built in Renfrew, Ontario, happily steaming away as it powers the fan on the Fairbanks Morse stationary radiator.   Our cooling water did not overheat at the show! 

These were some of the surprises that happened at the June Show.  But our theme was oil engines and we did have a great and varied display exhibited.  And smoke they did make!  The following brief representation of them.

Photo 6 shows a very rare 18 hp Renfrew Hvid injection, twin-cylinder oil engine. This engine was built in Renfrew, Ontario and is the largest twin-cylinder of this type. With the Hvid injection system, balancing the power impulses of the two cylinders could be a problem. This engine ran so well, firing evenly on both cylinders, that this was not a concern. 

There were many makers of the Hvid injection system both in the United States and in Canada and this principle was discussed in an earlier issue of The Flywheel. We were very fortunate to see many of these varied makers represented. All had certain similarities, as well as definite differences. Photo 7 shows a very nice 6 hp Brantford oil engine. These engines were built in Brantford, Ontario.

Photo 8 shows a 10 hp Northeastern diesel built in New Haven, Connecticut. This engine is a solid injection diesel that most probably originally had a marine use.

The most common Hvid injection engine is the "Thermoil" built by the Hercules engine company of Evansville, Indiana. Photo 9 shows a very nice 9 hp model that still retains much of its original paint. It is interesting to note that after the original model T Thermoil failed due to design problems, this model U was almost indestructible.

Bulldog gas engines were noted for their extremely heavy design and durability. But, as Photo 10 shows, their oil engines were even more rugged. Doug brought this engine a long way to display for our show here. Note the oil tank mounted on top of the water hopper.