Please tell me what you can about these engines

[Holescreek]

My grandfather had very diverse interests and unfortunately he died before I was old enough to appreciate it and ask him everything I wish I had now. I remember shelves of brass and copper steam engines that disappeared quickly after the funeral. I inherited his wooden machinist box and some odds and ends that were left behind in his basement shop. After I was first sent the link to this site I remembered a cigar box of old engines I have had stored for over 30 years. There are 3 small engines and some parts. I can remember him telling me stories of running an engine on alcohol that continued to increase in speed until it blew up. Here are some photos of what I have in the box. I know nothing about them, their fuel source or ignition system. They all appear to be missing parts. Either way, you might find them of interest. Thanks! -Mike

 

[Holescreek]

Here are some images of the other nice one:

 

[Holescreek]

OK, 87 views and no hints. Maybe I should be more specific with my question. Do either of the engines fall into a class or style that I can research? I'd like to figure out on the larger one with the open valves (if that's what they are) what it may have run on. It obviously drove a flat belt. The crankshaft is open to the environment. I have not taken any of them apart, but could the area around the cylinder have been a water jacket?
The other two at first would appear to be (to me) airplane engines but they have pulleys attached where propellers should be. The little spark plugs are cool though.

Dzadza(grampa - polish) served in WW1 and was a master machinist/inventor at Wright Field (Wright Patterson AFB) from 1940 on. His basement shop had a 10" Atlas and an old drill press. I have both of them sitting in my shop now.

 

[stevehuckss396]

It's a long shot but try sending a few protos to

http://modelenginenews.org/

The little engines seem to be modified airplane engines. The small engines of that type seem to be rons forte. He might be able to ID the engines.

The big one oh boy. That thing could be from plans in a magazine.

Sorry to be absolutely no help. Good luck

Steve

 

[malcolmt]

Hi Mike
OK here's my thoughts, The engine with the exposed valve springs and rockers has a water jacket around the cylinder fed by the two opposed unions one at high level and one at low level, The carburettor device has the fuel inlet on top of what you call a float chamber, Inside which is a "float" as the fuel level rises in the chamber it reaches a point where the float closes a valve to shut off the supply. Conversely as the engine uses up fuel the float drops thereby allowing fuel to be admitted again to "top it up". It appears to be missing the cam mechanism to open and close the "open spring" valves, and i can't see anyway of igniting the mixture so perhaps a diesel of some sort.

The "model" engines with the flywheels attached where probably designed for use in model boats whereby the engine sitting low in the hull would be impossible to start, So a leather thong was passed around the groove in the flywheel and each end grasped in your hands with the boat secured between your calves, You would then pull backwards and forwards on the leather a couple of times to prime the fuel system switch on the ignition and give a healthy yank on the leather releasing it at the last moment and away the engine would go. It would continue to run until it ran out of fuel or hit something !!!!

As for the other bits and pieces obviously they where gramps's spares or rescued from other engines.

If you could put something in the pictures to give us a sense of scale ( a ruler for instance) it may help us give you more idea about

1) what the belt driving engine may have been used for

2) some ideas as to capacity etc of the "boat engines"

Nice find, They certainly look to be engines from the earliest years of modelling and would have cost a princely sum in those days.
No doubt others will chime in with their thoughts as time passes.

Kind regards

Malcolm

 

[joeby]

I don't know much about the model airplane engines; but I think I have some brochures around that I sent for when trying to identify one of mine. Seems to me Brown Jr. was the name of one that looked similar to the one in the fourth photo down/ far right. Now I gotta find those brochures!

The first one pictured is a real puzzle. Very neat engine! Malcolm, I believe, has the water jacket nailed down. The valves most likely both cam operated (rockers on both); but by two cams possibly? There seems to be a very wide spacing between the pushrod ends of the rockers, and I don't see any type of tappet guide. The geared shaft looks rather interesting also, do you have a better picture of what the gear is driving? Maybe the gear is driven instead, as in starter?

The "carburetor" is confusing, don't see any air inlet.

Then there's the ignition, or lack of. No spark plug hole? It doesn't look like a "hot tube" setup, and I don't see any sort of mechanism for an ignitor.

Any more details you can add?

Kevin

 

[GailInNM]

Mike,
The engine in your second post was probably made for model boat or model car racing. The flywheel has a groove in it for whip starting with a cord. Also the cylinder head has the cooling fins running perpendicular to the normal direction for model aircraft engines. Depending on if the piston had a deflection baffle on it, or what kind of baffle, it might have been possible to rotate the head if it was a 4 bolt head, but it was common that the head had a recess in it for the baffle so the head could not be repositioned.

If you are serious about researching this type of engine, the American Model Engine Encyclopedia would be a good place to start assuming that it is an American made engine. The publisher, Tim Dannels is a nice guy and if you send him a photo he might be able to identify the engine. Keep in mind that his time is limited and don't expect him to research it for you, but he might be able to identify it with out researching.
He also publishes the Engine Collectors Journal.
This link is to the Encyclopedia, but poke around a bit and you will find info on the Journal and on how to contact Tim. Also a link to MECA, the Model Engine Collectors Assn.

http://www.modelenginecollecting.com/engine-encyclopedia.html

Steve mentioned Modelenginenews.org. On that site, go to the gallery and start looking. It is one of the largest online collection of model engine photos available.

On the large engine, there is not much to go on. There were many different utility engines produced that looked similar to that one. With so much missing it would be difficult to even try to identify it.

Keep in mind on all engines of this vintage, many of them were home constructed, often from plans published in magazines and many general purpose castings were available for a person to incorporate in their own design. This applies to all of the engines you have pictured. It is quite possible that these are one of a kind engines and maybe even built by your grandfather as from what you write he had both the interest and equipment to do so.

Gail in NM,USA

 

[Holescreek]

The big boy in the first photo is 6" tall from the table top to the top of the cylinder head. I am at work now (nights) but will get some scale shots tomorrow. Gramps never had a mill but did have a miniature shaper he made by hand during the depression that has become fairly famous within the shaper community. If you go here: http://www.neme-s.org/shapers/shaper_columns.html and go down to column #44 you can see what he was capable of making mostly by hand.

I am really interested more in the big boy. Should I take it apart, clean it up, photograph it and reassemble it... or just leave it be? I probably will never get it to run, but the valve and ignition questions are kind of interesting. -Mike

 

[Kermit]

To get an idea of what it would have looked like start with this book. It's a free downloadable pdf file of a tome published first in 1900 and starting on page 39 the author starts his plans for an engine the reader can build. Although it is for a Horizontal engine it is almost surely of the exact same type with the overhead valve rocker design looking almost identical.

Can't ID it more than to tell ya that much, reading it in full may give more clues on what it could be. (I'm currently reading it myself)

http://books.google.com/books?id=xF...ine+Construction"&lr=&as_brr=1&as_pt=ALLTYPES

Literararily speaking; Of Course!,
Kermit

 

[malcolmt]

Hi all

JOEBY : " The "carburetor" is confusing, don't see any air inlet."

If you think of the "carburettor as a float chamber mounted on an elbow with the air inlet pointing downwards i think it will seem a little clearer.

Kind regards

Malcolm

 

[Holescreek]

I started looking more closely at the head this mornig and noticed that the nuts seemed a little tall. Came to find that they were all loose. After removing the head I noticed a spark plug hole I hadn't seen before. To me it looks like the small gear assembly once rode against another gear on the crank and triggered the ignition.

 

[Holescreek]

It's a long shot but try sending a few protos to http://modelenginenews.org/

I followed through with that advise last night and was pleasantly surprised to receive an answer already"

Mike

They are all home constructed spark ignitions engines--ie, not commercial products. The "open frame" one is a 4-stroke (obvious! ;-), the others are 2-stroke. One bears a passing resemblance to a design by Irwin Ohlsson published in Popular Mechanics circa 1934--but then that design was copied and adapted a lot! I'd need bore and stroke to say more, or you can read about it on the Model Engine News web site (look under "Engines | Projects").

The normal fuel would have been "white gas" plus light weight oil in a 4:1 ratio. Today, we would use standard unleaded in place of "white gas". The story about alcohol is not impossible since alcohol has a higher calorific value, although "blow up" covers a lot of sins such as destroying a gasket, or spark plug seal. Model engines very, very, very seldom fail catastrophically. That said, petrol engines of these types would typically have a geometric compression ratio of about 6.5:1 and alcohol (methanol) needs to be up around 8:1 to combust effectively.

Hope this helps

Ron

There is hope yet! I may be able to find enough info to make the big one worth fixing up. -Mike

 

[joeby]

There's definitely hope for it, and the fact that it would be neater than s**t to see it run should be enough incentive to try to complete it. However, there's still the possibility that it's value to you "as is" might make it worthwhile to copy and keep the original.

Anyway, Malcolm has it right with the carburetor. Now that I see the underside it makes sense.
So now you have a water cooled four stroke with spark ignition. Looks like a good start.

Kevin