Asam:
Albert Welles' grandson was headed towards taking over the garage, but that was back in 1975. Possibly, the garage still survives in close to its form when Albert Welles (founder) was alive. Another point of interest in Welles' garage was the 'welding power supply'. Since this thread deals with steam cars, an alternative to I/C engined cars, a word about early electric cars would not be entirely out of place here. Albert Welles was quite resourceful and inventive, and had a good working knowledge of direct current and direct current electromachinery (fancy term for motors & generators & rotary converters). Near the area where the generators (made from what today we would call 'repurposed' streetcar traction motors), was the 'welding power supply'. This was a nicely finished marble panel with two large meters (amps & volts), a selector switch with 'button contacts' on the face of the marble panel, and a couple of knife switches. On the top of the panel was a nickel plated cast nameplate. In fancy scripted lettering, it read: "The Baker Electric Vehicle Company". It had been a 'charging station' for the Baker 'electrics'- electric cars back in the early days of automobiles. Mr. Welles had tied it into the DC buss bars of his 'powerplant' and used it to control amps and volts for welding current.
Another piece of repurposed equipment was the switchboard in his 'powerplant'. This was a soapstone panel with numerous open knife switches. It was the 'load center' for the garage and house. There were small engraved brass tags over each switch. On closer examination, these tags bore no resemblance to any part of Welles' garage or house. Instead, the tags read: "Fire room", "Wheelhouse", "engine Room", "Fire room", and similar. Mr. Welles told me that he had gotten that switchboard from a scrapped early US Navy steam torpedo boat. The steam torpedo boats were the forerunner of the destroyer.
As for Clyde's Cider Mill, I knew the place quite well. A man named John Bucklin, a grandson of B.F. Clyde (or grandson-in-law, if such a relationship exists) was running the cider mill in 1973-75. Albert Welles told me about the cider mill and I went over there. At that time, John Bucklin was converting the mill back to steam power. In about 1914, B.F. Clyde or his son had converted the mill from steam power to gasoline power. The power unit was a Model T Ford engine and transmission mounted on a wood skid. John Bucklin was converting back to steam power, and had just mounted the engine and piped up the boiler. The engine was a little center crank Ames steam engine from a laundry in Rhode Island. The boiler was a vertical firetube boiler (VFT), riveted construction, from a small creamery. There was also a small duplex steam feed pump and injector to supply feedwater to the boiler. I gave Mr. Bucklin a pressure relief valve to pipe into the feed pump discharge piping, so as to prevent accidentally deadheading the feed pump. I worked with Mr. Bucklin to shift the eccentric on the Ames engine to reverse its rotation so it could run the cider mill.
The boiler was oil fired from the git go, using a home oil burner gun. Mr. Bucklin had a relative (son in law, possibly), who was either a custom auto and motorcycle painter or tattoo artist, or both of these. His last name, being "Webb", was known predictably enough, as "Spider Webb". Spider went wild around the steam plant with pin striping and flourishes and fancy lettering.
I was at the cider mill many times when it was in operation. The Mill was typical of the era. Boomer and Bosschert, of Syracuse, NY furnished the entire Mill machinery, and their design utilized part of the Mill's post-and-beam framing as the press frame (screw press). Mr. Bucklin told me how, in the late 40's or ealry 50's, he had travelled to Syracuse, NY to the Boomer and Bosschert shops. He knew they were not long for this world, so bought the last keg of copper nails for putting together the frames used when the pulped apples are laid up for pressing. He also had asked Boomer & Bosschert to make a lineshaft driven cider pump. They had castings in stock, and machined them while Mr. Bucklin waited for the pump to be completed.
Boomer and Bosschert was perhaps the biggest cider mill (and wine pressing) equipment manufacturer in the USA. Their cider mills turn up quite often when you vist an old working cider mill. Locally here, we have another B & B cider mill. It is original, and has been in the same family since at least 1900. It differs from the Clyde Mill in that it uses toggle action presses and is a larger capacity mill. It was also originally steam powered, but was converted to gasoline power 'way back when'. This takes the form of about a 25 HP Fairbanks Morse gasoline engine, one cylinder.
If you meander around online, you can find the entire Boomer and Bosschert catalog. They were quite the manufacturers of all sorts of machinery for making cider, wine, and preparing other fruits for food products.
I remember riding my motorcycle to the Cider Mill quite often when they were pressing apples. Sometimes, I'd bring a date along. Mr. Bucklin always gave us a 'pull' of some high-test applejack or apple brandy (distilled from hard cider). When Mr. Bucklin saw me pull up on a motorcycle, he told me of how he rode an Indian in the 30's or 40's. He told me he wanted a pair of high motorcycle boots, so he rode to the Frye Boot Company in Marlborough, MA. He told the oldtime bootmakers what he wanted and they "tore their hair out" as it was not a use they associated their boots with.
I also brought my parents to the Cider Mill when it was in steam. Mr. Bucklin gave my Dad a pull of his special high test apple brandy. Dad was a WWII veteran, and as soon as he tasted the high test apple brandy, said the last time he'd had that same thing, he'd been fighting his way through France.
Clyde's Cider Mill is a special place. I always marvelled at how the mill building was integral to the mill machinery and process. Nowadays, in the interests of protecting us from ourselves, I know that the health departments (or similar) landed on the small oldtime cider mills, 'both feet first'. The health departments mandated that cider has to be either paseurized or dosed with some kind of antibacterial agent. Many small, family run 'on the farm' cider mills in NY State closed as a result. The mill near us, with the F-M engine, gets around it by simply not selling the cider. It is pressed and given to invitees, or to people who brought their own apples.
On the 18th of September, we have the annual 'cider party' at my buddy's automotive garage/machine shop. This shop includes a working planer, Hendey engine lathe, Hendey shaper, and a big Monarch lathe along with B & S vertical and horizontal mills. Another buddy brings his hit and miss engine and belts up to an ice cream freezer, and a small 'cidering outfit' is set up. Apples are run thru the grinder and hand pressed. Much food is brought, some grilled over wood fires, and other friends bring assorted musical instruments such as fiddles, banjos and the like. At some point, someone new to the party will be given the shop tour and the planer will be started. The planer earns its keep planing automobile cylinder heads, decking engine blocks, and resurfacing manifolds.
I got my own dream realized with the steam plant at Hanford Mills. Adam: you visited Hanford Mills before we had the steam plant, if I remember correctly. The steam plant at the Mill is a re-creation of what was there ca 1890. I was retained to design the steam plant for the Mill and have been with it ever since. Today, I am going up to Hanford Mills to meet with the Mill super and a contractor. I do engineering work for Hanford Mills as a volunteer. This particular job is to stabilize the steam engine foundation (original mortared stone). We have a horizontal return tube boiler (HRT) in a brick setting, boiler built new using submerged arc welding to ASME code. The boiler sits on the original mortared bluestone foundation from the original HRT, in the original boilerhouse. 60 foot high riveted stack, as per original.
We run two steam engines which are belted up to the line shafting when water power is not in use.
In any 'working museum' there has to be a degree of reality and practicality. Museum types do not want to change anything from what was there way back when, but in order to have a working museum such as Hanford Mills, or Clyde's Cider Mill, modern methods of construction and modern codes and design criteria need to be followed.
At Hanford Mills, we hid the welded construction boiler inside the brick setting, and had a replica boiler front cast to look like the original. Similarly, when I detailed the 3" main steam piping, I called for open butt welded joints (who is crazy enough to thread 3" pipe, let alone get 300 lb black MI fittings ?). We hid the welded joints under the pipe insulation. I enjoy the fact that places like Clyde's Cider Mill and Hanford Mills are 'working mills'. Not just static displays, and not just engines running without driving anything.
This is why we are stabilizing the engine foundation at Hanford Mills. It is mortared stone, not on any real footing, and the outboard bearing pedestal is on an independent stone pier. Both the main engine foundation and outboard bearing pier sit on a kind of random subgrade soil consisting of sandy clay shot with cobbles.
Under load, the engine foundation 'walks' a bit. Many years prior to 1920 (when the original steam plant was removed), someone at Hanford Mills had attempted to address this by building a stone buttress on the engine foundation to transfer the thrust load to the building foundation- which, being random stone rubble, did not do anything. My design calls for a hidden reinforced concrete 'incorporation slab' to tie the main engine foundation and outboard bearing pier together, and rebar dowels to be drilled and grouted down thru the stone foundations. Dowels into the sides of the two engine foundations will tie into the rebar mats in the incorporation slab. Since this all will be under the engine room's floor, the visiting public and critics will be none the wiser.
Once we get the foundations stabilized and the plant back in steam, my hope is to take a set of indicator cards when the engine is pulling the sawmill. May as well 'go the whole hog'. Some of the function of Hanford Mills is to saw out lumber from locally logged trees. Hemlock and Pine are sawn into timbers and board lumber. Some of it went into my blacksmith shed here at the house. Having a preserved working mill as close to original as possible is always special.
