What Is It?

A cast steel hippopotamus? No? Oh, well. Never mind.

Hydraulic bed shaker...

Some inoperable, old rusty thing used years ago only in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.

Looks like an open-housing bevel gear drive. I wonder what is being stirred down below.

Off to the right there is probably an oxen-powered capstan, too.

a picklefork and a mess

Heavy duty Amish waffle maker?

A semi-automated plank rough planer (all the wood shavings).

You shall not PASS!

Wow, with that, I could really stir up some crap.

Yeah - I thought I'd have some fun with this until tcmtech saw it - then it would be over. You nailed it. That is just about 50 yards from my utility shed. Just past the brine collection pond and a bit to the left.

Yup, sure looks like it, you can even see the jerker lines attached. Fairbank oil still has operating oil wells running of central drive.

google - oil museum of Canada or petrolia discovery and you will find some similar pictures.

Not quite similar if running - this site has been abandoned since pre-1969. That's when my house was built across the lease access road. To access now you need to use a gas line right-of -way. Of course, by now, that would mean a whole lot of tree cutting.

I have been told there is a much larger one running somewhere in McKean County Pa., and I personally know the location of a lease with central power that is running a few wells via jerkline with an old Chevy Blue Streak inline 6. That one is well hidden from the public, and you definitely want a 4 wheel drive with high ground clearance, or my method of access - a 5" travel mountain bike to get to it, as it has some serious environmental issues they prefer to hide. Basically, it is still 1940 on this lease.

Okay - we have a winner. Tcmtech had an unfair advantage, but the guess it was something old in Nowhere Pa was close.

Here is what all those rods (jerklines) laying on the floor were attached to. This is one of the last ones to be produced by this "Powerhouse."

http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Central%20Power/pump.html

Interesting thread

Cheers

Del

O.K. i get that the 'jerk line' pulls on the stirrup and pushes the Pitman rod up, but what drives the crank plate in the picture?

Jim

And the front of the Bovaird & Seyfang.

Thanks for the reply. This is all new stuff to me. A Google search shows this as a gas engine. Is this so? When they say 'gas' is that gasoline or fumes from a heated pot of crude oil?

This one is an anomaly, as I can follow a 3" pipe from the cylinder head to an adjoining building with a large concrete pad and a definite water tank, not oil, beside it. No doubt a steam genny was mounted here. Yet, it definitely has the Bovaird & Seyfang builders plate on it dated 1948 and built in Bradford, Pa. (not the Oklahoma branch) Maybe this was an after market modification?

Most were built with gasoline in mind, but the old timers used what they could. They tell stories of running Model T cars off well head gas during the war years because of rationing, so no doubt, many were run on well head gas, as it was a nuisance in the past. Too much, and they would flare it. I remember seeing this as late as the middle 1980's. Now we filter and dry it and send it past a flowmeter and down a pipe for use. Some still gets loose even today, as most collection tanks are vented to the atmosphere. The valleys around here on humid mornings smell as though they could explode. No - not the rotten egg smell you think of with gas, but the smell of sweet crude. The smell of money to an old oilfield hand.

Here's one in action....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Vm2juLFkg

Yes - beautiful.

You miss the true intensity of the noise. Some of these were down right annoying a mile away.

I have a picture of a powerhouse foundation / floor pad that obviously had 4 of these on it when it was running. I missed seeing that one - must have been impressive.

Here's one in the field.

Oil Field Power House With Superior 35 HP Engine

• 4:04

Cool pictures.

Thank you!

If you really want to know what things are try including more image to begin with,

Best I could do in a building with 2 big trees down on top of it. Here is what I had to deal with to get these pix.

That looks like one of the holes my Grandad drilled ?

Did anyone else notice that none of those "Warning" signs remained? How the hell did we ever build what we have today if we were all getting killer or injured in those machines?

No need for Warning Signs. When I was a kid, if you were stupid, you died. Obviously the intelligent have survived.

"Only the strong survive."

And the stupid were horrifically injured, completely disabled, sued the manufacturer, got a huge settlement (insert Mcdonalds coffee in lap lawsuit here) and are still living up to the status of life sucking sponge scum!

Sure some of them die, just not enough of the stupid lazy ones have jobs that exposes them to hazardous machinery that would thin out the "herd".

Common sense and personal responsibility has gone out the window! What's next? Warnings on ice cubes that they may cause frostbite?

Hey - don't complain. Think of all the work this has generated for label makers. There are two individuals in the company I work for, that have purchased the equipment necessary to make these kind of labels and do a good business in the evenings/weekends making warning labels.

Have a panel go through a CSA inspection - they are even more enthusiastic about labels than OSHA. Pretty shiny SS cabinet covered in warning labels.

And American ingenuity wins again.

Good for them, anyone that will go the extra mile to provide a better life for ones self is the basis for the true American Worker!

One more pix - all that's left of a several block complex with forge where these engines were built. The building is now an ammunition store and apartment.