Cow gill, Missouri 64637
Nelson Rinehart of Braymer, Missouri keeps farmers on the job as
his regular occupation by mechanical work at McKnight Implement
Company in Braymer. His way of letting off steam from the pressure
is through his 6000 pound steam engine, which he is tinkering with
in every extra spare moment.
The climax of 3000 hours of work over a period of seven years
came about when Nelson Rinehart, local Braymer, Missouri man, fired
up his Avery steam engine for the first time.
This little baby just weighs three ton or 6000 pounds and has 10
to 12 horsepower. It is built on one-half scale of the original
Avery steam engine.
Nelson was a youngun’ in part of the steam engine era of the
30s when threshing, wood cutting and many chores of family life
were still achieved by the power of the steam engine. The Rinehart
family’s last steam engine was sold as scrap iron during World
War I in one of the patriotic scrap iron drives.
Nelson built his first steam engine in 1959 and 1960. It was
built on a one-third scale.
In 1965, with a mental blueprint of the Avery he wanted to
build, his second project began with two trips to Chicago for
cylinder castings. Many of the parts were turned out on a lathe in
the Rinehart workshop in Braymer. Tires were cut to size and fitted
on the wheel. An aluminum wash pan makes a decorative dome on the
top of the engine. He made a Bull Dog casting to put on the front
of the engine to serve as the coat of arms.
His mental blueprint turned out just as planned. The only
problem was caused by wasps building their nests in the boiler but
this was soon corrected and cleaned out.
The paint job on the engine was completed by his brother, Melvin
Rinehart. Speaking of help on the project, his father, the late
Glen Rinehart, had given him lots of moral support and was one of
his most enthusiastic boosters. The engine has been shown in many
steam engine shows in the area.
One trip to Nelson’s workshop in Brayer, Missouri for an
onlooker certainly brings the comment, ‘Wish I’d done
that,’ or ‘I can’t believe you made the whole thing,
Nelson.’
For the benefit of most readers, a steam engine is a machine
using expansion force of steam as a motive power. The first
recorded attempt to use steam as a motive power is attributed to
Hero of Alexander in the second century B.C. From the time of
Hero’s experience until the beginning of the 18th century
nothing more was known or heard of the steam engine. Thomas Newton
of England received a patent for a steam engine in 1705. Later
James Watt greatly improved the steam engine plan and the steam
engine as we know it today is constructed from Watt’s plan.
