Terry Harper

A rich fuel mixture will cause an engine to run cooler. Its actually the opposite.

Since the Porter used the same engine as the FRP I wonder if anyone at the Seal Cove Museum could provide any insight?

As with many expensive cars - Jaguar Rover, etc. the first owner usually could afford the car and the maintenance. The second owner could afford the car but not the maintenance and it only goes down hill from there.

Here is a view of a Kissel Double Six

In the July 5th 1913 edition of the "Saturday Evening Post" Cole took out a 6 page ad explaining that there were traditionally two types of motor car - manufactured and assembled and went on to claim that their cars were a product of a new type - i.e. "standardized" and thus were not "assembled" cars. Its quite an interesting ad. You can find it by searching Google Books. However, that ad seemed to have ignited a bit of a fire storm. A rebuttal was presented and later published by Charles W. Mears who at that time was the advertising manager for Winton. It's way too long for me to post but again is available through Google Books and appears - in of all places in "Agricultural Advertising" (November 1913.) Its an interesting paper. In addition, while looking around I found indications of a similar debate in regards to tractors of the period - the speculation being that at some point they would become an assembled product and thus easier to mass produce and more affordable.

One of Moon's interesting "Specialist" Ad's celebrating their use of outside suppliers (Specialists) and arguing that "Assembled." is not a bad word and for one manufacturer to use the term "assembled" when referring to another brand's product is really throwing rocks in a glass house. From the first two paragraphs: "The veteran car buyer doesn't quite see what a salesman means when he talks about somebody's assembled car. To hear him point with pride to standard and well known units in his own car and, in the next breath, speak of his competitors as assembled is enough to confuse anybody...." Again, very neat stuff.

"The Automobile" March 28, 1907 "The Automobile" Dec. 6th 1917 Note in this article it appears as though they are referring to the "assembled car business" almost as a separate segment of the industry which is interesting. Another clip from the same source. In regards to "Assembled" being used in the derogatory sense here we have a period ad from Locomobile. Note how they draw a distinction between "built" and "assembled" indirectly implying that the latter is lesser. Of course they also imply the same thing in regards to high volume production. And lastly from Winton who wanted it understood that they "manufacture[d]" cars not "assemble[d]" them. All very interesting stuff!

Very nice Gary!

Fantastic work and thank you for sharing! I have always wanted to try lost was castings. In fact I have a couple of silicone molds sitting on the shelf and some materials stored away from another project. Just need to make it happen!

Many ways to do things - Lost PLA, Silicone molds & lost wax, 3D printed and plated, etc. - the fact we have so many options is pretty amazing. Recently I had to get a quote for some castings. Unfortunately the size of the parts made 3D printing the patterns a no-go. Likewise spending over $17,000.00 to hire out the patterns and core box work was out of the question as well. Since we didn't have access to original parts (other than for reverse engineering) we couldn't use those as patterns either. The solution was 3D printed molds. Having modeled the parts in Solidworks as well as creating the shop drawings, It was simple to send the foundry the STL files and to discuss the various details of the project. granted the 3D printed molds are a one shot deal but since I doubt very, very much anyone other than this particular client needs a set of these castings that is fine with us. The cost savings over traditional patterns has made the project affordable. Not that long ago this option didn't exist. Is this whole process cheap? Nope! As an example: Part No. 54 (Steering Quadrant) - the 3D printed mold was quoted at $4,458.00, each casting at $345.00 ea. (the price per casting drops with quantity) Mind you, this doesn't include my time spent on the reverse engineering, developing the 3D model, shop drawing and calculating tolerances etc. for this one part which would have been about 6-8 hours. To keep the cost in perspective that steering quadrant weighs a little over 73 lbs. so it's not a small part. Here is a rendering and couple of clips from the shop drawings.

I always considered "assembled" to be a derogatory marketing term not really centered in reality. i.e. "It applies to thee but not to me". Very,very few manufactures could be considered 100% in house. Then there is Moon (If my memory is correct) who ran an ad campaign explaining the benefits of being an "assembled" car using "the best" components provided by "specialists". In regards to ALCO Here is a tidbit from the "The Automobile Journal", August 25, 1913

Nice work Gary! That is a tough part to print. I see your using a Creality Ender? We have two of the Creality CR10's - for fairly cheap printers they are reliable and do an excellent job. On our older printer, which had a slight warp to the build plate, we now use a mirrored tile with blue painters tape for adhesion. On the newest printer the build plate is the coated glass and is nice and flat but we still use the painters tape which works excellent.

Back in the late 80's I bought 1946 KB5 out of a farmers field for $100.00. It had sat for at least 10. With a bit of careful recommissioning it ran rather well and was fun to rumble around with. Unfortunately it went the way of the house and everything else during a rather messy parting of the ways.

Gary, I feel the same way. I enjoy working on challenging projects. I love those "YES!!" moments when a difficult problem is solved and of course helping people - it never gets old. Like you, I don't share files on public domain for several reasons - the first is they are often the property of the client. Second: My time is worth something. If I do a project pro bono that is my choice as opposed to a third party profiting from my work without my consent. On the flip side I would recommend caution in regards to using work that is in the public domain. Usually its simply the 3D model in STL format with no supporting documentation or reference material to verify if it is indeed accurate. Seldom are there accompanying shop drawings or reference material. Creating a design package (3D model and shop drawings) that accurately captures and communicates geometry, design intent, tolerances and manufacturing processes is far, far different than a simple 3D representation. While many people can crank out a 3D model few have the skills, knowledge & background as Gary has to create true quality work. Again, great work Gary!

Yes, but its a simple matter to scale up the 3D model. Also, if its being traditional sand cast as opposed to investment cast or lost PLA you need to add draft. In addition, often machining allowance as to be added as well.

Hello Gary, Looks great! I try to avoid ABS. Unless its a very small part we always have issues with warping and lifting from the build plate even with Kapton tape etc. and that is with a printer with a heated build plate and enclosure. We try to stick with PLA though PET, PVA & PETG we have had good luck with. At the moment we have a couple of patterns for Hele-Shaw clutch components printing off - Got to love a 48 hour print!

Looks great Ron, I am wondering if you can "fake" the rivet heads where visible. Use the bolts for alignment while welding than remove them and plug weld fake rivet heads in place. This is common practice in railroad locomotive and equipment restorations. i.e. welded boiler with rivet heads tacked on for the aesthetics. As an example, here is our welded seam boiler with "fake" cone head rivets.

For the past 10 years I have taught Engineering Technology at a a high school Career & Technical Center. In fact my lab is the same room I learned drafting in over 40 years ago. I feel fortunate that success in my previous professional career allowed me to be able to afford to take this position. If that sounds strange you need to realize that most technical school teaching positions are filled by people coming from industry. It's hard to draw quality people out of the workforce when all you can offer them is a teachers salary which is far less than what they earned out in industry. For example, when I started this position my 30 year professional career was translated into a pay scale equal to that of a teacher with 15 years experience. I.E if you have 10 years in industry that translates to 5 years of teaching experience and so forth. It's hard to get good people to move from industry to teaching a trade. In addition, a trade program has a very, very high per student cost. My budget (maximum of 32 students but minimum of 13) is almost 12 times the budget for say a physics class in the local high school. Add to that the fact that since we are in a rural area, rarely are our classes filled to capacity. On top of this are the never ending costs in equipment and technology required to keep our programs current and abreast of the industries we represent. Needless to say the numbers never look good to the local community or state - thus we are costly programs serving a minority of the student body and are ripe for cutting. Then there are the other issues. The decades long push for everyone to get a four year degree has greatly stigmatized tech programs and trade schools as the "lesser" path. The term "Vocational" is no longer used because of that. It became a slander. As a result our numbers are down. Our local community college which was in fact a very good technical school is now reduced to handing out mostly liberal arts degrees. I have had people who should know better advice my students that if they want to go into engineering or architecture they would be better off taking a foreign language rather than my class even though foreign language wasn't a requirement for college enrollment. Mind you these are the same people who graduate from high school, spend four or five years in college and upon graduation go to work back in a high school - experiencing very little of the real world yet are expected to counsel students on career and educational choices when their experiences have been horribly limited. As for the students... yes things are different than "when we were in school". Some for the better, many for decidedly worse. However, we find in our trade programs that we tend for the most part to have good students that want to learn. This is in part because our classes are electives and they choose to be here. Many know what they want to do post graduation and for a career so they can be highly motivated. Likewise we often have students that were clueless about their future and our programs open up opportunities or at the very least they gain a valuable skill. However, some technical programs can easily become a dumping ground for students for various reasons - be they academic or behavioral. This in some part goes back to the use of the term "Vocational" as meaning lesser or easier and that of course can impact the classroom environment and every student in the program. On the other hand I have had students considered to be "a problem" in academic classes turn out to be excellent students. I remember one such students who was late to class every day. Then, for a number of days, he showed up on time. When I thanked him for being on time he replied with a big grin: "Well Mr. Harper, to be honest your class is the only class I've been going too." sigh.... As for quality... its true that a lot of young people today tend to be passive. They watch Youtube rather than learning by doing and will quickly claim they know how to do something when in fact they have never done it themselves. When they do try it they often fail and simply give up. Society as whole views failure as something to be avoided always. When in fact we learn much more through failure than we would through success. "Embrace the suck" I believe would be an apt term. They feel that you have to be born with special skills to perform special tasks and why try and risk failure. Students and youth are individuals - we can't simply write them off as a group. Last year I had a small group of second year students that were amazing! Their motivation was astounding. They would come into class all excited about ideas they had and work hard to take those abstract ideas and turn them into reality. Often - on their own initiative, they worked on projects at home. They produced a ton of work - prototyped an early magneto impulse coupling, a unique ice fishing rig, a piece of fitness equipment, a 3D filament recycler and extruder, designed a road and reverse engineered a bunch of stuff for various "clients". It was an amazing year. Of that group of five, three won four year, full tuition scholarships (two for mechanical engineering and the one for civil engineering). A 4th student is studying electrical engineer and the the 5th student earned quite a number of scholarships and is attending a trade school to become a licensed electrician. We joked that in two years he will be earning considerably more than the others by the time they completed college in four years. Encourage, support and teach.

"Designed by Kurt Hitke..." Hitke was a fairly famous racing driver. Normally I don't like wikipedia but for a very quick search.... Interesting the connections you can find. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Hitke Hitke in his Roamer Special 1919 https://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/IMS/id/16827 In 1919 he brought his Kenworthy (the article implies it was a rebuilt Roamer) home in third place at Cincinnati. Note that C.Y. Kenworthy was listed as a Chicago Roamer dealer. ("Motor Age", October 16, 1919)

"Motor Age", Dec 20th. 1920 includes a table with specifications for many makes. Both the Kenworthy 4-80 & 6-55 are listed. Interestingly the 4-80 is listed as having a Duesenberg 4 cylinder engine with a Stromberg carb. The 6-55 with a 6 cylinder Continental with a Stromberg as well. No listing for the 8 cylinder.

Totally agree Walt! My biggest beef is mutilating nice period architecture in the name of "improvements" Here is a view of our downtown. And what it use to look like. The large brick building in the distance was the State Theater which was destroyed by fire. The building with the multi-level porches was replaced with the current bland brick building. There is still some nice period architecture hidden behind the cheesy appliques, fake brickwork metal and trappings.

This is one of those photographs I have always been been fascinated with. Many years ago I was working on a historical research project and was contacted by the late Mrs. Avis Harkness Black. Her father was O.A. Harkness who throughout the 1920's was Chief Mechanical Officer for the Great Northern Paper Company. Prior to that he had worked for Fred Marsh who founded Eastern Manufacturing which was located in South Brewer, Maine. Harkness was an interesting man. He is best known today as the "Admiral of the Northwoods" in reference to the many boats of varying sizes he designed and built for both Great Northern and Marsh. He also held several patents. (For an enjoyable account of O.A.'s life see: "Logging Towboats and Boom Jumpers: The Story of O.A. Harkness" , Roger Moody, North Country Press, 2018) Anyway, during my visit with Avis she handed me a stack of what turned out to be her fathers photo albums which included this image. It was taken near Russell Brook in Township 9-14 where Eastern Manufacturing had an extensive logging operation during the period spanning 1908 - 1913. We still have many, many unorganized townships in north western Maine thus the township grid reference.

Here you go Walt. Similar view as it appears today. I am sure back then the big mansard was more colorful than plain old white though not garish. The newer buildings across the street and beyond (other than the church) are certainly not an improvement.

Holt tractor equipped with a Sargent plow clearing streets in Greenville, Maine. The Sargent plow, produced by the Union Iron Works in Bangor, Maine, was interesting in several aspects - The company claimed that they developed the first tractor snow plow and the tractor actually pulled the plow as opposed to pushing it. When you think about it it may sound strange but it makes sense when you realize that the early crawler tractors were designed for pulling equipment, trailers etc. as opposed to pushing with a dozer blade which came into use later on.

Wow! That is wonderful!