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arse_sidewards said:
Man, in this age of 3D printers the whole "two stainless halves welded together" manifold construction might still be relevant. Print your interior volume and hammer some 20ga over it. :laughing:
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Super common in older aviation engine exhaust manifolds. For a mass produced engine (which had aviation DNA), which justified the stamping tooling, it made a lot of sense.
 
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Ovrez said:
Duesenberg 12-Cylinder Marine Engine and the Disturber IV

Duesenberg 12-Cylinder Marine Engine and the Disturber IV​

5 Replies
By William Pearce
In 1910, the relatively unknown Fred and Augie Duesenberg began designing what would become their walking beam engine. This style of engine had a unique valve arrangement in which horizontal valves, perpendicular to the cylinder axis, opened into a small space above the cylinders. The valves were actuated by very long and large rocker arms, referred to as “walking beams.” By 1913, Duesenberg engines had attracted some attention and were noticed by Commodore James A. Pugh.
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The Duesenberg straight-12 marine engine of over 750 hp. Large aluminum covers protected the walking beam rockers of each cylinder pair.
Pugh was interested in building a boat to win the Harmsworth Trophy (British International Trophy for Motorboats) in 1914 and bring the trophy back to the United States. The Harmsworth Trophy was held each year by the country that won it the previous year. The British had won the trophy in 1913 (and 1912), and the 1914 race was to be held on Osborne Bay, England. Pugh was building a 40-foot (12.2 m) hydroplane named Disturber IV and needed powerful engines to ensure victory. Pugh brought the Duesenbergs into the project, and the Duesenbergs began designing a truly unique engine to power Pugh’s new boat.
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The one-piece aluminum crankcase for the Duesenberg straight-12 engine.
The Disturber IV was to be powered by two separate straight 12-cylinder engines. Each engine was over 10-feet (3 m) long and was comprised of six two-cylinder blocks mounted on a one-piece crankcase. Each two-cylinder block was water-cooled with the intake valves in the middle of the block and the exhaust vales on the outside. The intake and exhaust valves were operated by long walking beam rockers. A single updraft carburetor provided the fuel/air mixture to a split manifold that fed four cylinders. Each cylinder had two spark plugs. Lubrication was provided by a pressurized oil system, a now-universal concept that was just being introduced at the time. The single-piece crankshaft was supported by seven main bearings.
The use of aluminum was rare for the time, yet the Duesenbergs used it extensively in the engine’s design. The crankcase was one of the largest aluminum forgings made at the time and weighed 365 lb (166 kg) before the final machine work. Magnalite aluminum pistons were used, and the walking beam rocker arm covers were aluminum.
The inline 12-cylinder engine had a bore of 6.75 in (171 mm) and a stroke of 7.5 in (191 mm). Total displacement was 3,221 cu in (52.8 L). The engine developed 750 hp (559 kW) at 1,500 rpm and 800 hp (597 kW) at 1,600 rpm. While it is possible that more power could have been obtained at a higher rpm, the often quoted 900 hp (671 kW) seems a little optimistic. The engine weighed 2,700 lb (1,225 kg). With both engines installed in Disturber IV and running at full speed, total fuel burn was reported at 132 gallons (500 L) per hour.
These mighty 12-cylinder engines were built at the Duesenberg Motor Company factory in St. Paul, Minnesota. The engines were finished and installed in Disturber IV in mid-1914. The installation of the engines was mirrored so that the intake of the left engine was on the left side and the intake of the right engine was on the right side. This effectively allowed the engines to run in opposite directions. Thus, each engine’s single propeller rotated in opposite directions. The propellers were 24 in (610 mm) in diameter with a 40 in (1 m) pitch. Through a step-up gearbox with a ratio of 1.25 to 1, each propeller turned at 2,000 rpm while the engine speed was 1,600 rpm.
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Funny, Bill Pearce was one of my good friends from high school. We used to go to the reno air races toghether. Always had a love of aviation and racing and thats how he got on the Duesenberg thing. He wrote a short book on the subject. I have a copy on the bookshelf.

Other funny thing, he mentions that the fountain in front of the Duesenberg factory was actually the cooling pond for the engine dyno.
 
Wouldn't this leave all kinds of residual stresses in the ship's hull?

 
local daredevil, grandson is a friend and a 4wheeler

Al Faussett rides over Sunset Falls (Skykomish River) in a dugout canoe on May 30, 1926.​

On May 30, 1926, Al Faussett (1879-1948) rides over Sunset Falls on the Skykomish River in Snohomish County in a homemade dugout canoe. The stunt, witnessed by approximately 3,500 people, propels Faussett from an obscure life as a Monroe logger to a falls-leaping daredevil. After Sunset Falls, Faussett will go on to jump over six other falls in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho between 1926 and 1929.

The Making of a Daredevil

Alfred “Al” Faussett was born in Minnesota on April 12, 1879, but moved to Monroe (Snohomish County) about 1893. He married, had a family, and lived an obscure life running his own small logging operation until the mid-1920s. Then, in 1926, opportunity knocked.

“Daredevil” stunts were among the rages of the 1920s, with people doing tricks on the wings of flying biplanes, pilots flying under bridge arches, people going over waterfalls in strange contraptions -- anything people could think of to earn bragging rights to being the biggest and best. Faussett decided he was the man for the waterfall trick.

Sunset Falls is the largest and last of three major waterfalls on the South Fork of the Skykomish River, located just over a mile south of Index, Washington. The falls drop 104 feet in a 40-foot wide granite chute that runs for 275 feet. In 1926 the falls had a vicious whirlpool at the bottom, known for stripping huge logs of their bark and hurling them like wooden missiles straight up into the air. Twenty people were said to have been killed in the whirlpool, and no one was known to have successfully ridden over the falls.


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A Canoe and a Business Manager

In April 1926 Faussett announced he would jump Sunset Falls on May 30. He had already built his boat: a 32-foot canoe, created from a large spruce log, described by one writer as “halfway between a rowboat and kayak” (Lindgren, p. 203). The front of the canoe had a steel covering, the rear was covered with canvas, and the canoe itself was fitted with five-foot-long vine maple branches placed at different angles to the boat. These branches had a dual purpose: to absorb the canoe’s collision with boulders as it went down the falls, and to provide a spring of sorts to deflect the canoe from the rocks and help keep it in the middle of the channel.

Faussett had added other protection too. Inside his canoe he planned to wear a belt with a quick release buckle as he rode over the falls. And he was particularly proud of a small air tank with a rubber tube that he built for the occasion. He said that if the canoe flipped and trapped him underwater the tank would provide him with enough air for an hour.

Faussett hired Herbert “Scoop” Toole (1898-1928), an Everett News sports writer, as his business manager. Together the two men tirelessly plugged the stunt. They exhibited the canoe, named the Skykomish Queen, in towns throughout Snohomish County. They shut down rumors that Faussett would actually be hidden a barrel and that a dummy would ride down the falls in the canoe (“Al Faussett To Ride Falls In Plain Sight” assured an Everett News column). They made sure that Faussett the daredevil stayed in the news as May 30 approached.

May 30,1926, was a Sunday. On Saturday people began arriving and staking out prime spots near the falls; Sunday even more came and snuck in without paying the dollar admission, which infuriated Toole. By show time between 1 and 2 p.m. there were about 3,500 people on hand.




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His First Fast Ride

“I never was cooler in my life,” bragged Faussett in an Everett News article the next day. But he was also late: For reasons apparently not recorded, Faussett didn’t get into the water until 4 p.m., by which time the crowd was growing impatient. He was pushed into the water about 1,000 feet east of the falls, coasted to the brink, then accelerated into the falls, reaching a speed estimated at between 60 and 80 miles per hour as he raced through the chute. The crowd caught their breath as the canoe sped toward a large boulder in the middle of the falls. It glanced off of the boulder, leapt so high that nearly the entire canoe was airborne, then slapped back down and disappeared in a curtain of spray at the bottom of the falls.

Several tense seconds passed. Suddenly Faussett and the canoe reappeared, shooting over the wicked whirlpool at the bottom of the falls and gliding gracefully into smoother waters beyond. From top to bottom, the ride had lasted about 20 seconds. Faussett waved to the crowd, who whooped and cheered. He briefly complained of some general “inner pains” afterward, but was otherwise uninjured.

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"Little Did I Dream ..."

Faussett described his aquatic adventure in an exclusive for the next day’s issue of the Everett News.

“People will never know, and little did I dream, of the power of those treacherous waters in the falls ... (The water) twisted my body and head ... . The line to my air tank had broken with the first meeting of the fast water and I was forced to hold my breath the best I could against the crushing water. The water came so fast it crammed down my nostrils and throat ... . It was all over in a few seconds, and when I saw the light of day as I rode out of the turbulent waters, I thanked God that I had ridden safely through” (The Everett News, May 31, 1926).
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Faussett went on to jump six other falls in Washington (including Eagle Falls in Snohomish County), Oregon, and Idaho in the next three years. In the 1930s he moved to Portland, Oregon, and died there on February 16, 1948.

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93 years ago that guy was 94 meaning he was born 187 years ago in 1836 and we can hear him speak. He was born before photography had been invented and Napoleon was still alive on St. Helena. This is amazing.
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I remember a letter in a magazine some decades ago from a man who recalled as a very young boy watching a veterans parade, when a very old man came over to him and asked to shake his hand. He did, and the man told him he was a Civil War vet who had seen a Revolutionary War veteran when he was a child and shook his hand. The Civil War vet told him not to forget he was only two handshakes away from the start of the country. I always wanted to shake that writer's hand. It's unbelievable to think even today, we could still be just three handshakes away from 1776.
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