A DOUBLE CYLINDER HUBER

clutch. It had a sliding lever that pushed two pins into the arms
of the arrangement on the shaft. Something just like on one model
of a regular sewing machine. It wasn’t supposed to be engaged
unless the engine was stopped, otherwise it was hard on the pins.
The separator had a Huber feeder then and a swinger straw carrier
and they used this rig for two years. In 1905 they were going to
trade it and get a larger outfit. They went to Lincoln and first
thing when they came to the Huber House they saw that new Double
Cylinder what was called by some dealers as a 22 HP The larger
cylinder was horizontal and the smaller one was upright, pretty
close to the left side drive wheel, and the bottom of the cylinder
was about 16 inches from the ground. The salesman told them that
the Huber Company made only few of them and that they are going to
be in great demand. That was 5% sales talk and 95% B.S. as
everybody found out that bought one. Anyhow, this said George Spatz
was a young man then and was so stuck on that set up that they
bought that engine and a new 36 x 56 Huber Separator. This
Separator had a blower that was half upright in the rear and
wasn’t gear driven, but had 4 extra idler pulleys where the
blower belt made some fancy snake turns. Our country around here
was noted for Case Separators and I saw a lot of grief with the
Case Belt tightener on their blowers. So we have to give the Huber
some credit for arranging four idlers and on that set up. It had to
be alright as one could reverse and the belt would stay on. In 1907
I hired to them to haul water for stack threshing. George was 22
years old then and was a good engineer and a better mechanic than
the average person but he had one strike against him that really
wasn’t his fault. He was forgetful. And that was bad with that
model Huber. That one cylinder being hung where it was so far down
would accumulate water as soon as the engine was stopped. He would
forget to open the relief cocks when starting. Once the cylinder
head on that small cylinder blew out. As the cylinders each one had
its own independent steam pipe of live steam he shut the steam off
and we would thresh with the one cylinder and to be honest nobody
would know the difference as this engine didn’t exhaust as a
simple double would. He would order a new head and when it came he
put it on and it wasn’t more then two days he forgot again and
this time the eccentric tore off, but didn’t disturb anything
on the big cylinder. Both these cylinders were operated from one
eccentric wheel on the crank shaft. Well, he ordered the new parts
and we threshed until they arrived and he put them on. The same
thing happened again in a few days, only this time it broke a piece
of the crosshead of the small cylinder. But the cross head slides
and the pin were intact so we could run it that way, just the
piston and the piston rod were left idle that time and he ordered
them. When they were replaced that was the last time anything
happened to that engine to put it out of working condition as far
as the small cylinder was concerned. Every lime we used that one
cylinder only. I noticed that it would take one tank water a day
less and about 500 lbs. of coal less. I hauled water to the same
rig next year and Mr. Marushak ran the Engine. He never forgot
about the relief cocks and we didn’t have any trouble in that
respect.

I remember that when I started to haul water I was instructed,
never to follow the rig up hill until it has passed the peak. It
paid off once with this same rig. They were going up a very steep
long hill, the engine was laboring pretty loud and all of a sudden
it sounded like when the belt comes off on a heavy load. As I was
at the bottom of the hill I looked up and saw the separator
crossways on the road and everything was quiet.

When I drove up there the whole thing was in a mess. The engine
wasn’t uncoupled but as the separator was crossways the engine
rammed into the side and it broke the rear axle on the separator on
the lower side and it was a miracle that the separator didn’t
upset down hill. There were a lot of parts broke on that one side.
In three days we were threshing again. This was the last job that
year and the engine was traded the next year for a single cylinder
Huber. One of these Engines would be worth a lot of money if they
were in existence. To bad somebody didn’t save
one.

Forgot to mention what happened to the engine going up that
hill. The clutch pinion on the crank shaft split.