2009 Week 11 in Review

Work continues on the Maris Pearl

We started this week at Old Tacoma Marine Inc by finishing up the service on the Maris Pearl‘s generators. Jay’s got more work lined up for me next week, though.

Field trip to the Washington State History Research Center

Later in the week, OTM Inc went to Tacoma to sort through the Washington Iron Works company collection at the Washington State History Research Center (remember back in Week 7 that we volunteered to put the collection in order). Diana and I put in two whole days organizing glass plate negatives from 1890 to 1924 or so. We took each negative out of its original paper file folder, found its original number, wrote its unique sequential catalog number on an acid-free paper sleeve, looked up the information in the original company catalog and wrote that on the sleeve, looked at the negative to make sure that the information matched the image, entered the number and the information into the computer, put the negative in the sleeve, and put it in order with the rest. This ensures eternal safe keeping and makes sure that the right information stays with each negative.

Diana as the museologist set up a system and continually streamlined the operation to process as many negatives as possible during our allotted time in Tacoma. She’s done a lot of museum cataloging and set up a whole system of sorted piles so that each negative passed back and forth across the work table three or four times. By the end of the day, we could both tell a skidder engine from a loader engine (which are apparently easier to tell apart than embroidery motifs from Golden Triangle cultures):

The most fascinating discoveries were plans and photos of the first Washington-Estep diesel, which went into the tug Elmore. It was beautiful and had interesting parts that I haven’t seen on any other engine, like two injectors set at an angle in each cylinder head. It also had an intermediate head that gave the firing chamber a very round shape, which maximized the fuel combustion. Designer Adrian Estep was clearly a fanatic about efficiency and had the drafting department, the pattern shop, the foundry and the machine shop all at his disposal. It seems to me he intended to build “the perfect engine,” and no one was going to stop him. None of the later Washingtons that I’m familiar with have those two angled injectors or the intermediate head, though, so I wonder what happened. Maybe we’ll find out next time.

Unfortunately, we had to stop just as we were getting to 1924, just before Washington Iron Works started putting out its diesel line. We probably processed about a third of the collection over those two days, but the good stuff will have to wait until next time, which will be when we find funding to continue.

Programs on the Arthur Foss

On Saturday, I helped Northwest Seaport run a session of Tugboat Night on the Arthur Foss. Sadly, we had to cancel the earlier Engineer for a Day program because of low participation, but next time I’ll advertise more to make sure we can run it.

Tugboat Night went really well, though, and I feel like we caught up on a few maintenance items. We serviced the batteries and the air compressor, and did a little cleaning – not to mention exercising all the equipment. We ran both generators and the main engine, and turned the rudder back and forth to work the steering system.

Make sure you come to the next Tugboat Night, on April 11!

Limited-availability Winton parts

I’ve heard rumors that the Circle Line 11 and the Circle Line 15 are slated for demo, and their Winton diesels will likely be scrapped… unless folks from the tug Luna or the lightship Ambrose can use them. I hear through the waterfront telephone that neither organization can find the resources to get the parts. This is the sad truth about owning and old diesel engine: it actually takes a lot of effort (both time and money) to get spare parts even if they are selling at scrap value.

Keeping the past relevant

Historians have an up-hill battle to keep the past relevant to the masses. People and culture are growing at a rate too fast to look back, but looking back to see where we came from is as important as looking forward to see where we’re going.

Looking back is my business. I spend a lot of my time hammering on old engines, but I have to spend an equal amount of time trying to explain why it’s worth keeping the old heavy-duty diesels running. With records broken every day, new ideas shot down by newer ideas, and innovation trumping tradition, it’s easy to ask “why bother?” Why spend a lifetime taking care of a dwindling handful of old junk that society says are worth more as scrap than as artifacts? These are questions that I share with museums and other institutions that are struggling to reach out to six billion people to try to make some kind of difference in the world.

When I was working in Alaska on the Mist Cove, I went with Ted the Chef to the Sitka Historical Society and Museum, which had a native “halibut hook” on display:

I had seen them in tourist shops and museums and never cared, but Ted the Chef pointed to it and said that these hooks are designed to catch the perfect-sized halibut. He said that the Tlingits and Haida traditionally targeted the 30-pounders because they taste better, are easier to manage, and were most likely males. These folks realized that fewer male fish were required to keep a healthy fishery alive, so they let the females grow old and hatch more fish every year.

All through that summer, Ted the Chef and I had constantly tasted and judged fish caught on the Mist Cove. We agreed that a 30-pound halibut tastes better than any other size, even though everyone wants to catch a 300-pound fish and get their picture taken with it. Well, the next week Ted and I made a halibut hook (though I used a nail instead of a piece of bone) and tried it out. It took a few tries, but I did land a nice twelve-pounder and it was delicious.

Now, I do like museums, but my fishing trip with Ted the Chef taught me more about halibut hooks than looking at a hundred hooks in a museum. Using an artifact (or at least a replica) really helps you understand its significance, especially if it’s something as finely and carefully designed as a halibut hook or a heavy-duty diesel. I think that experiences like this are really the best way to interact with historic artifacts, but not everyone can go fishing with Ted or turn over a heavy-duty with me. What can I do, and what can museums do, to reach out to everyone else and share how significant history is?

It takes a personal connection like this to make any kind of artifact relevant and interesting, but there are so many distractions that get in the way of making that attachment. I wish fewer kids and adults were content sitting in their basement playing Grand Theft Auto and more were interested in venturing outside to a museum or an old boat. I’m finding that the internet is a good way to reach some of these people with some of this connection. A video on YouTube, a picture on Flickr, a paragraph on this blog – they all help bring some of the relevance to the “general public” out there living their lives without looking back. Still, it’s hard to make a real connection over the internet, just like it’s hard to make a real connection through a glass display case.

Readers, what are your thoughts? This is a big topic to take on, and this won’t be the last you hear of it.

2008 Week 43 in review

The Duwamish, completed!

Last week I finished rebuilding the Duwamish‘s air compressor, but didn’t have time to test it. This week, I ran it for a few hours while I cleaned up the engine room a bit. It worked great! Before the rebuild, it basically didn’t work at all because the air compressor’s valves didn’t get a seal and therefore didn’t compress any air. When I turned it on after the rebuild, I had one tank at 450 psi in about half an hour – way better.

This will also make our next Engineer for a Day class much easier to set up for, since it won’t take so much effort to get enough air pressure to start the engines. For one class, we had to run an air hose from the Arthur Foss over to the fireboat so we could start the mains.

Tire-kicking with Brian

Occasionally, Old Tacoma Marine leads a tour of old boats with old engines in Seattle. This week, after Brian brought three drums of oil down to the Arthur Foss (thanks, Brian!), we drove all around Ballard on the grand tour. We visited the Northwest Marine Propulsion Museum to see Mike’s little three-cylinder Atlas-Imperial and the Washington that was never installed in a boat, as well as the Ruby XIV and its Washington. We then visited Dan Grinstead’s tug Lorna Foss with its direct reversing Atlas-Imperial (the only model with a sliding cam), and then went over to the Angeles, a project tug with a DMG-6 Enterprise.

Jason, who owns the Angeles, hopes to sell the boat to someone unafraid of woodwork. I hope he finds someone, since the tug would make a great cruiser.

After this whirlwind tour, it was back to work – mostly in the office this week, as we’re getting ready for the Catalyst to arrive for her winter engine project.

“New” tugs and engines on the website

Old Tacoma Marine Inc has located another few heavy-duty diesel engines: an Enterprise in the CN Tugboat #6, another Enterprise in the tugboat Lake Superior, another enterprise in the tugboat Edward H, and an Atlas-Imperial on display at Antique Powerland in Brooks, Oregon.

The CN Tugboat #6 (“CN” stands for “Canadian National”) has a DMG6 Enterprise rated for 575 horsepower and is owned by the S S Sicamous Restoration Society, which operates the Okanagon Inland Maritime Heritage Park. Until 2006, it was owned by the City of Kelowna, but it sounds like they had no idea what to do with an old tug and finally donated it to people who know boats. The Society has three other old boats, so I hope that they know what they’ve gotten into:

We couldn’t find as much information about the Lake Superior or the Edward H, but according to the Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping News, they’re both WWII tugs of the same class as the Maris Pearl and the Red Cloud and all the rest, powered by the big Q Enterprises. They’ve both been based in the Great Lakes for several years, have been bought by new owners, re-located to the Duluth area, and are being put back to work. If anyone has any more information – or engine pictures – about either of these tugs, please let us know.

Finally, the Antique Powerland folks have a four-cylinder Atlas-Imperial on display at their grounds in Brooks, Oregon:

According to user Bluedisk, who took this picture and uploaded it to Wikipedia, this engine came out of a tugboat. If anyone reading this knows more about the engine, please let us know!

As always, send us any updates, corrections, or other heavy-duty diesels that we haven’t “found” yet.

On the subject of preserving old stuff

Last week and this week got me thinking about old engines in museum collections again. Mostly, I’m very happy to see museums accepting engines into their permanent collections, but I see some downsides to it. The biggest problem is that museums don’t necessarily understand how to care for a diesel engine. They’re used to preserving artifacts by making storage mounts and keeping them in a climate-controlled space and not letting anything damage them – which works great if the artifact is a hat or a map or a sea chest or something like that:

Engines are different, though – they have to be exercised and maintained in order to preserve them. If you let an engine just sit, even if in a climate-controlled room, it will slowly destroy itself. The oils and lubricants degrade over time, which then allows rust into the unpainted parts of an engine. Even worse, if it was ever seawater cooled then the cast iron pieces have salt permanently stuck in them, which will rust an engine from the inside out. If you just let the engine sit, then the interior parts of the cooling system will fill up with rust and then start pushing out. Eventually, the engine will literally explode – very slowly, but the rust will push its way out and break the castings.

The way to prevent this from happening is to exercise the engine as often as possible. This means lubricating everything and running it if it still runs, or barring it over if it doesn’t. Doing all this will also let you inspect the engine, clean it up, and hopefully notice any problems that need more attention. I know that actually using an artifact like this flies in the face of a lot of museum theory about conserving the original fabric of the object, but since it’s impossible to preserve it without exercising it, I think that museums need to widen their definition of collections care if they have engines in their collection.

Exercising an engine also creates more opportunities to involve the public with the artifacts. A static engine quickly gets boring to all but the most ardent enthusiasts, but a working engine that the public can watch and listen to is interesting for a lot longer to more people. Running an engine also means that a museum can hold repair workshops and engineering classes, which provides yet another layer of “interpretation.”

With all this in mind, I propose that all museums that own an old diesel at least occasionally run the engine, to both preserve the moving parts and also to give members of the public more opportunity to understand 1920s diesel technology.