Meet Spark Plug of the Month Sam Schnur, known as the gas engine expert.
Daily News and Radio’s “Joe’s Journal.”
Sam “Snore” Schnur proudly displays his beautiful model
of an “Economy” Gas Engine which runs tiny pump-jack. Note
pee-wee bucket and pump spout. No wonder Sam’s smiling,
ear-to-ear. He even made pea-sized tin cup to drink from. His sign “No More Repair Work” must mean Sam’s retired into
model-making.
That Spark Plug of the Month and gas engine expert, always so friendly and long on the
handshake at the annual reunions man of the big smile and oily
overalls bending over that prototype or scale model of some
early-vintage gas engine along Gasoline Alley just what kind of a “critter” be he should one drop by his native lair, someday
unannounced and uninvited?
It was with much trembling and foreboding that I rapped my
knuckles on the door of one Sam Schnur (Snore), Doctor of Spark
Plugs, Piston Rings and Connecting Rods, living in the very shadows
of N.T.A. President, LeRoy Blaker up Alvordton-way.
“‘Sam Snore’? Yes, I know where he lives,”
answered the only rural mail carrier at the Alvordton, Ohio, post
office. “Turn right at the next street, b’ar to the left at
the dead end and keep going he lives up the road about a
mile.”
After trying every door at the house, there was but one door
left to knock on the entrance to his little shop, hard by the
family residence. Someone was mumbling “shop talk” to
himself the instant my knuckles came into contact with the hard
pine door. The latch flew open and in the narrow gap of the doorway
stood Sam “Snore”, grinning from ear to ear.
“Well, of all things look who’s here. Come on in,”
exclaimed the jovial Sam.
It was one of the neatest, most orderly little backyard
workshops I had ever seen. And right in the thick of things was my
friend, Sam “Snore”, bending laboriously over a beautiful
scale model of a two-cylinder Detroit gas engine, vintage of the
early 1900’s.
“I don’t believe I’ll have this running by the time
of the Wauseon Reunion, but I’ll take it along for display
anyway,” smiled Sam, bending like a workshop genius over his
beautiful model gas engine. “However. I should have it running
by the time I go to Jim Whitby’s Reunion at Fort Wayne,
Indiana.”
“What beautiful bronze castings,” I remarked to Sam,
noting the cylinder jackets to his little Detroit model.
“Those aren’t castings,” interrupted Sam, picking up
the remaining sheet from an old Stanley Steamer boiler.
”They’re made from pieces I cut from this sheet of
40-thousandths copper and silver-soldered together,”quoth he,
chuckling proudly as he defied me to find any flaws therein (which
I couldn’t).
“She’s a four-cycle, two-cylinder engine and ready to
run, but for finishing out the radiator and cooling system,”
mused “Snore” as he turned the fly-wheel a time or two.
“And where’s the little one-cylinder model of the Sears
Roebuck ‘Economy’ Gas Engine you’ve been showing and
the little pump-jack that goes with it?” queried Sam’s
inquisitive visitor.
“Right in this case,” replied Sam, lifting the lid and
exposing to my view one of the finest working models of an internal
combustion engine that eye ever beheld at any Gasoline Alley
conclave.
Sam “Snore” Schnur looks a little happy as he
anticipates completion of beautiful model of 2 cylinder
Detroit engine. Note beautiful cylinder jackets which he, fashioned
from pieces of old Stanley Stamer boiler plate. If we know Sam, it
will work like a watch.
“Let’s see if she’ll start,” said Sam. “I
haven’t turned it over for a spell.”
A couple of routine turns with the choke on, Sam “Snore”
gave the flywheels a flip and the tiny model his pride and joy
began popping away, just like the old farm engines that used to
pump water for the thirsty cows and horses back on Uncle John’s
farm.
Fetching his tiny pump-jack, and diminutive tin-cup, Sam “Snore” soon had fresh well water coming up and a drink for
everyone that is, if a teaspoon of water from the tiny cup could be
called a drink.
“This is my lathe and drill press,” pointed out Sam as
we toured his well-appointed workshop. “And here’s a little
steam traction engine my wife bought for me many years
ago.”
“Used to thresh in the ring around Alvordton,” said Sam. “But when the ring broke up, I up and built my own thresher, a
22 by 36 separator, and did my own threshing for nine
years.”
A visit in his little garage, adjoining his workshop, revealed
prototypes of many old and historic gas engines, single and double
flywheel, one and two-cylinder, two and four-cycle types. And there
was that old “Excelsior” Motorcycle that Sam used to ride
in his younger days and still does, not to mention his faithful
little Studebaker “Lark” which fetches both Sam and his
models to all the reunions he attends either alone or in the
company of Carlton Wiesel, the team of which always heads the fine
model display at the National Threshermen’s Reunion each
year.
“Nice little lathe here,” quoth I, bending bug-eyed over
a neat package of machinery atop one of Sam “Snore’s”
benches.
“I made that lathe years ago for turning out small
parts,” reminisced the ingenious Sam.
“When I get a little tired I just curl up over there”, mused
Sam, pointing to an old sofa in the corner of his garage where,
like Edison, “Snore” catches up on snores between jobs.
A knock on the shop door brought the queries of a young farm
neighbor who wanted Sam to “tune up” a two-wheeled garden
plow.
Bronson brothers’ (Otsego, Michigan) Rumely Oil Pull 16-30
at Galesburg, Michigan, Steam Rodeo several years ago.
“Leave it here for a few days and I’ll see what I can
do,” said Sam, ignoring the sign on his door which read, “No More Repair Work.”
“Be see in’ you at the reunions, Sam,” we said as we
waved goodbye.
“So glad you dropped by,” replied Sam, grinning from ear
to ear.
And away we drove, satisfied that the Spark Plug of the Month
was no more vicious or frightening in his native lair than at the
Gasoline Alley reunions and quite as friendly.
Let’s keep it that way, Sam. (Do I hear a resounding, “Amen”, from Brother Elmer?)
