643 Bellefonte Ave. Lock Haven, Pa. 17745
It all started Lack in 1910 when I was a twelve year old boy. I
was born in Greene County, Pennsylvania, about fifty miles south of
Pittsburgh. My father operated a dairy farm and sold butter and
cream. Two machines necessary for this enterprise were a cream
separator and a churn.
In 1910 he bought a 2I1P Bluffton gasoline engine, manufactured
by the Bluffton, Ohio, to operate these machines along with a
washing machine and some other small equipment. As I had been the
separator boy, it fell my lot to take care of the engine and
operate it whenever anyone wanted this power, a job I thoroughly
enjoyed.
Most farm papers in those days carried a section on gasoline
engines. I well re member, ‘The Gas Engine Expert and His
Son’ in ‘Successful Farming’. I read and reread these
articles and thus secured a good working knowledge at the gasoline
engine.
I will digress a minute here and relate a story along this line:
Two men in the community bought a hay baler with an engine mounted
on it and did custom work. One Saturday, while baling at our place,
they discovered there was not enough wire for a lull days run.
After much deliberation they decided to start up alter dinner, run
until the wire was all used and quit early. Imagine the
disappointment when with only fourteen wires left, the engine
stopped.
New Way binder engine mounted on a six foot Osborne Binder. My
father, John C. Haver, Jefferson, Penna. at the controls. I took,
developed and printed the original picture in the summer of
1915.
Frank and Bill pulling the engine equipped binder around those
Green County hillsides in 1915.
The owners consulted the instruction book but to no avail. Boys
in those days were to be seen and not heard. I stood it as long as
I could then stepped up, told them where the trouble was and what
adjustment was necessary to correct it. The adjustment was made,
the engine started, and soon every one was happy, especially my
father who never missed an opportunity to tell the neighbors that
it was his twelve year old boy who started the baler engine.
The Bluffton engine had two serious defects; (1) The mechanism
that operated the ignitor was not properly designed. This caused
excessive wear on the parts. (2) The governor would stick, in spite
of all we could do and the engine would run off. One day it started
and before I could get to it, it threw the governor off and then it
did go. I rushed in, pulled the switch and saved the engine from
complete destruction. By the way, we never did find parts of the
governor.
Rather than repair the Bluffton, my father traded it for a 3?
H.P. upright, air-cooled New Way. This engine had battery ignition
with jump spark, which I considered a great improvement over the
other. It was always easy to start and keep clean. We never spent a
cent on re pairs.
In 1915, New Way came out with a binder engine. As pulling a
binder over those Greene County hills was about all three horses
could do, we decided to get one. It was a 4 H. P. throttle governed
engine with high tension magneto. It was cooled by a fan, driven by
a flat belt over the single fly wheel. This was very successful as
two horses could pull the binder any place on the farm. I am
including two pictures showing the ma chine in operation.
Soon after World War I, my father sold his dairy herd and
devoted most of his time to an orchard he had started. He mounted
the binder engine on his spray pump and used it until 1944. After
twenty nine years of service the engine was discarded because parts
were no longer available.
In 1912 my father bought a 7 H. P. twin cylinder opposed New
Way, to grind feed, fill silo, etc. For you New Way fans, this was
the one with a single carburetor. In 1923 he loaned this engine to
a contractor to operate a generator. After thirty two days of
continous running a connecting rod let loose and that was the end
of the New Way Twin. Father then bought a used 12 H. P. Domestic
for grinding feed, etc. This engine was junked during World War
Two.
I graduated from college in 1924 and spent the next forty one
years in school business. Though I was away from gas oline engines,
I never lost interest in them. So now, when I am retired, one of my
favorite hobbies is gasoline engines.
1? Hp. Simplicity owned by Ron. Novo engine – another one owned
by Ron.
This is my old gasoline or oil engine and I have been unable to
find anyone who knows anything about it. There is a small rod going
through the cylinder head, kept in place by a spring. The head of
the piston hits the rod each revolution which makes the break. One
of the pictures shows how the rod is pushed, in this case by a
finger, while the other picture shows the rod in the normal
position. The spring is enclosed in a capped pipe which extends
through and outside the cylinder head. I would guess the engine to
around 2 Hp.
I would appreciate information from any of your readers who
might recognize this engine.
