3651 U.S. Rt. 322, Box 133, Williams field, Ohio 44093
Pictured is a little steam engine I bought four or five years
ago and had done nothing with until last winter.
I am not a steam engine buff, but lean rather heavily toward
gasoline one lungers. I have 15 ranging in size from 1 to 18
horsepower.
I have a neighbor and very good friend, Fred Hart, who knew I
had this little steam engine. He is 95 years old and is a steam
engine nut. He has worked steam engines since he was 19 years old.
He had run the old traction engines on threshing rigs, saw mills,
had a stationary boiler and engine in his own saw mill and had
fired boilers in the steel industry.
Fred knew I had this little engine and called me one evening
last winter. He said ‘Don, we should get that little steam
engine going. I would love to run it at the engine show in June
over in Pennsylvania.’ So I said I would get it out, clean and
paint it and we could hook it up to an air tank. He said, ‘No!
No! you will have to build a boiler for it.’ When I said I
didn’t know anything about building a boiler he said ‘I
do.’ So we got together and he told me what I needed. I rounded
up the materials and made the boiler using the bottom of a cast
iron domestic coal fired water heater for grates and ash pit made
the fire box. I used a piece of 8′ pipe for the boiler putting
in 1 flues.
On May 15, 1980 Fred came up to my shop. Another engine nut and
neighbor, Don Bryan, came and we carried the engine and boiler
outside and fired it up.
When we turned the steam into that engine Fred was right in his
glory. We then belted it to an old barrel churn.
Fred did not run the engine at the Pennsylvania show as he was
in the hospital, but we had two engine shows here at my place and
Fred was here having a ball with the steam engine and all the other
show engines.
