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Neat gas powered air compressor

larboc

Limestone cowboy
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
237
Messages
825
Loc
Da yoop
Was shopping at the local hoarder clearing house and saw this guy, never seen one before, I really want it for a conversation piece. Anyone play with one?

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I googled it, what a crazy out of the box thinking radical machine. Seems like smokestack has a lot of info and pics.
 
Is that a horizontal radial engine/compressor integrated into one piece? Looks like it was meant to last forever with that solid state magneto, that an anything made by IR was meant to last forever.
 
Is that a horizontal radial engine/compressor integrated into one piece? Looks like it was meant to last forever with that solid state magneto, that an anything made by IR was meant to last forever.

Yea it's like a 6-cylinder radial engine, and every other cylinder is a compressor. Looks to be 100% IR rather than using half of a v8 or VW automotive engine like similar styles of compressors. Zero parts available. Was popular as an air source for railroad MOW equipment, made into the early 50's. I need it just to use it as an obscure portable air source.
 
Does that flywheel on the bottom have a counterweight?

Otherwise it looks like it would hop all over the yard!
 
Buy it!

It'll go well with your weird rotary powered snowmobiles
 
That’s the cooling fan.

Yeah, I see.

It's also a big cast iron wheel. That spins.

Some radials had a big counterweight. I'm just wondering if that one does. The videos make it look pretty smooth, but if it weighs #250 like Bangshift says...

nordberg-12-cylinder-radial-crankshaft.jpg
 
One of the articles mentioned that it didn't have a tank, they just started it up when they ran tools- well, yeah, with that output!
uhh most engine drives still don't have tanks
well they have oil separators but I don't think that really counts
 
One of the articles mentioned that it didn't have a tank, they just started it up when they ran tools- well, yeah, with that output!

The pic chzbrgr posted has a hose and a jack hammer with a matching hose so.... those things suck aome fucking air.
 
[486 said:
;n167668]
uhh most engine drives still don't have tanks
well they have oil separators but I don't think that really counts

Huh. I haven't used anything with that kind of output, just little driveway airtool stuff with an 8hp Honda.
 
[486 said:
;n167756]"hoarder clearing house"
scrapyard?

Kind of, it is a 100'x500' building built in the 1880's in support of the calumet and hecla copper mining company that when C&H closed the mine sold off for cheap to a guy who also got the contract to scrap all the railroads and a lot of mining operations around it. He was also a hoarder and turned it into a hardware store too. It is/was PACKED full of all kinds of man stuff. Dozens of gas/diesel powered air compressors, pto boxes, transmissions, pneumatic tools from underground including a 12" pneumatic circular saw, saw mill, dozens of mills, lathes, shapers, detroit 2-strokes and parts, locamotive parts, concrete equipment, winches, hydraulic parts, snowmobiles, outboards, close to 100 gas/diesel generators, stove pipe, babbit, welders, you name it. Outside there were miles of rail, switch stands, airport tugs, baggage conveyors, truck mounted vacumes and snowblowers, 20' tall stack of bar grate, I-beams, loaders, 20t hydraulic crane, backhoe, the list goes on. You name it, they had it for sale for CHEAP! They've been selling off everything since early summer and have started scrapping heavily recently. I bought a rock crusher, 3- 26.5r25 loader tires, 5 thern 482's, a couple dozen N65 injector cores, a bunch of bar grateing, pipe, and some more random parts and I think I've spent a total of $200.
rockcrusher.jpg
winch.jpg

Getting empty now
southend.jpg
 
Kind of, it is a 100'x500' building built in the 1880's in support of the calumet and hecla copper mining company that when C&H closed the mine sold off for cheap to a guy who also got the contract to scrap all the railroads and a lot of mining operations around it. He was also a hoarder and turned it into a hardware store too. It is/was PACKED full of all kinds of man stuff. Dozens of gas/diesel powered air compressors, pto boxes, transmissions, pneumatic tools from underground including a 12" pneumatic circular saw, saw mill, dozens of mills, lathes, shapers, detroit 2-strokes and parts, locamotive parts, concrete equipment, winches, hydraulic parts, snowmobiles, outboards, close to 100 gas/diesel generators, stove pipe, babbit, welders, you name it. Outside there were miles of rail, switch stands, airport tugs, baggage conveyors, truck mounted vacumes and snowblowers, 20' tall stack of bar grate, I-beams, loaders, 20t hydraulic crane, backhoe, the list goes on. You name it, they had it for sale for CHEAP! They've been selling off everything since early summer and have started scrapping heavily recently. I bought a rock crusher, 3- 26.5r25 loader tires, 5 thern 482's, a couple dozen N65 injector cores, a bunch of bar grateing, pipe, and some more random parts and I think I've spent a total of $200.
Getting empty now

Sounds friggin awesome!
 
They've been selling off everything since early summer and have started scrapping heavily recently.

Fuck, that hurts man

there was a somewhat similar but smaller outfit down in the cities that just recently got auctioned off, most went to scrap
fucking sucks because all the used tool storefronts in the area are now gone
 
I would love just to listen to it run...

One of my customers has a 500HP Radial air compressor, it is NOT fun to be around! Fawker scares the crap out of me being in the same room with it! I'll take my oil flooded rotary screws any day! 36CFM at 100psi ain't much more than a bicycle pump.
 
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