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1900s-1940s frick compressors

S

Stldrew

Plastic
Joined
Oct 11, 2021
A buddy of mine is demolishing a warehouse and I recovered some machines / parts. I know there is a market out there for them but I am struggling finding any information on them.

What are they worth? What do I need to search to find information?

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
 
I don't think they have any value in commerce other than as scrap metal. They may have something better than scrap value to someone wanting to use one in an antique display or to someone wanting to convert it to an internal combustion engine, but don't get too greedy.
 
Definitely refrigerant pumps.

Not worth a whole lot in terms of usefulness - mostly collector's value.

You could convert them to run as air compressors if you equip them for through-lubrication. E.g. an oil fogger on the intake and an oil trap on the discharge. AFAIK all refrigerant pumps are designed to use either the refrigerant or an oil that is blended into it for lubrication. The how or why of it I'm admittedly not familiar with.
 
I believe Frick was a maker of steam tractors and engines,when the founder died,the works passed in to other hands ,and was a maker of refrigeration compressors.......anyhoo,as mentioned most (not all) refrigeration compressors use oil dissolved in the refrigerant and circulating with it.....I think big (50 ton) ammonia compressors are separately lubricated,as ammonia works at quite high pressure,like 1000psi................When I was a wee lad,we used to salvage refrigeration bits ,and in those days common gasses in old systems was sulfur dioxide,methyl chloride ,and ammonia......you had to be careful ,as every bolt hole would be full of the highly volatile liquid,and undoing a bolt might be accompanied by a squirt of caustic liquid .
 
The compressors have an interesting construction.....what appears to be a cylinder head held down by bolts is actually a gas tight cover......the head of each cylinder is actually held down by a very strong spring inside the cover ...the idea is that a slug of liquid passing through the cylinder wont smash the piston and rod due to incompressability......the compression ratio is very high as any free space reduces efficiency ........Anyhoo,my point is if you undo all the head bolts,the spring inside may propel the 100lb+ cover with great force as the gasket breaks.
 
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