H.H. Elmer crude oil engine Patent 1484554

Do you have the date of the Patent?

I have abridged patents for Gas & Oil Engines for about 50 years, 1855-1930 so could look it up and see if it is there in our books. The Patent number you have quoted looks like it is quite a late one?

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

There are drawings at

I suppose you have seen these.

The US patent office has the full patent online, including all diagrams and schematics.

Go to

and select quick search and search for the patent number. Make sure you select 1790 onwards.

-Mark

While the USPTO website is useful for searching and plain text copies of patents it's a complete pain in the ass if you want to save or print out the full "original" document.

I've been using

for quite a while. You just enter the patent number in a box and click on the button. It then queries the USPTO and combines the TIF image pages returned into one downloadable pdf file.

Dave,

Yep, I have those. I was hoping on something else with much more detail..

;)

Paul...

As for the rest of the replies, I was hoping.. Wishing, that someone had some plans with much more details on them.

I guess if I cannot locate any, then it will have to be making a smaller model at first and guess the sizes of things to see if it is possible to remake the engine...

Paul...

Is there a way to get UK patents like this ? - that would be fun, and potentially a way to access designs for models.

Don't you love the press release at

!

Not only will it do 300 miles to the gallon (not bad for what appears to be a stationary engine - that must be in a trailer towed behind a car), but it doesn't waste effort combusting the oil, instead this explodes on escaping the exhaust. And the engine needs no cooling either (I suppose it wouldn't if there was no internal combustion). Come to think of it I think I have seen this sort of engine at a rally. To make it go you had to crank like hell - and then no combustion happened, and while the engine didn't need cooling the person cranking it got very hot (and red-faced) ! That must have been what was happening when the press turned up to write the article on the Elmer.

Are you thinking of making one as a model or is this a cross-posting from the stationary engine newsgroup?

Steve

.

Steve, If I can get some plans of sorts then I would like to make one. Give me something to do in my workshop...

;)

Paul...

Couldn't find anything in my library. There is a book called "Old Gas Engines" (title out of my head) that lists a lot of gas engines of that time. You _might_ find something there. But mostly just one picture. I don't have that book.

I also would have a look into Lyle Cummin's books. "Internal Fire" and "Diesel's History ..." do not list it, but other books might.

BTW: Anybody interested in IC-engine history can buy Lyle's books blind. Even if they are expensive. I have read "Diesel's history" cover to cover. *Great*!

If you can't find anything, I could visit the "Deutsches Museum"-library for you and have a look what they have. Their library is great by all means.

Nick

Thanks for that Mike. Does anyone see any way to start at the earliest entries. It looks like a long job to get back as they seem to start at the latest entries. For that matter, does anyone know at what date the list starts?

Likewise - thanks Mike - I didn't know about this - but I can see there is a bit of learning to do before I can drive it.

In answer to Dave the table I am looking at suggest GB patents in the "worldwide" go back to 1859 and abstracts for the patents back to 1893 (which is marvellous if true) - thought I haven't found the list you are referring to. It looks like it is all search engine to me.

I have managed to search for mclaren as the applicant and engine in the title or abstract and found - GB450997 - "Method for converting steam driven cable ploughing engines or tractors to internal combustion engine drive " - 1935 complete with abstract.

So there may be some treasure in there, though it could be hard to find

- presumably if you find something interesting there are ways to get a better copy as the scanned images are not high quality.

Steve

Let me just add that the system for getting patents is better than I thought. Under "original document" I am looking at a high res image of the drawings for better Corliss valves dating back to 1914 (Soho Iron Works, Lancaster).

This is excellent.

Steve

That is a good one. One of the reasons I want to play with Corliss type valves is that I reckon I can play with the valve timing (as well as have linkages all over the place to watch).

But that must be for another thread...however this ability to search old patents is fascinating. I have just dug out some Fowler info for a friend who is building a model of an engine.

Steve

Ya missed this interesting one: GB189820531

Tom

Nick, seems I have hit a brick wall. I do have the patent and the one article from the web, but that is it. I guess I will have to study the patent very closly to try and work out what the measurements maybe and go from there?

I wonder if a smaller model would work of this version of engine? Depends on the compression potential I guess...

Paul...

The problem with patent-drawings is, that they need not be to scale and my have wrong proportions. They often were drawn before the real thing saw any light. So often enough, they have errors. Either willingly or due to lack of experience.

Nick

Paul, Maybe a patent prototype is as far as it went. Do you have evidence that the design was taken into production by somebody ? Many patents go no further, because there are better alternatives, or because there is insufficient perceived demand.

It seems to me that there are precious few scale models of diesel engines, which I think is probably due to the difficulty of making a scale model of the injector assembly - which has small enough tolerances at full scale. So I looked for the equivalent problem in this one and it looks like the fuel metering is somehow concentric with and inside the exhaust valve. I expect the inventor spent quite a lot of time on this bit at full scale, so this could be the challenge (both to understand and to make !).

Steve