Foghorn "Washing Machine"

[rp2813]

This came up in a search (appropriately enough, on SF CL) and I'm very tempted.

 

I never knew for sure how they operated, and always thought they were much, much larger.

 

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/atq/5368689878.html

 

[ovrphil]

I'd love to hear it sound off. I used to visit a Lake Michigan state park with a light house that had a fog horn. It would sound when afternoon fog sometimes rolled in (2PM). New Years Eve - sound the horn!

 

[roto204]

Wow!

We are mounting that in your attic.

 

[rp2813]

Nate

Not on the front of the garage?

 

I contacted the seller.  She doesn't know if it works and doesn't want anyone fiddling with it to figure out how it works, and although it looks simple enough, I told her I'd pass.

 

If it worked, I'd be headed to the nearest underpass.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The pipe used for a fog horn is the Diaphone heard in theater organs. They rise on a narrow stem and then curve 90 degrees into a flared bell.

The inventor cited in the article linked below, Robert Hope Jones, came up with a way to unite ranks to make organs sound larger. He called it his "unit orchestra." His work enabled all of the ranks of pipes to be played from any manual instead of just the ranks of pipes in the division controlled by a single manual. He invented stop tabs and conceived the idea of arranging them in curved rows above the manuals, giving us the "horseshoe" console. He is also responsible for electro-pneumatic action which was able to replace the cumbersome mechanical tracker action of older instruments, a factor which liberated the console from the chests of pipes and would eventually enable theater organ consoles to rise up out of the pit for sing along and organ solo parts of the show then sink back to orchestra level to play accompaniment for the silent films and finally sink completely out of sight at the end of the performance. Robert Hope Jones came up with many of the novel stops that produced the sounds associated with theater organs. This appealed to Rudolph Wurlitzer so, after the Hope Jones Organ Company went bankrupt in 1910, he purchased all of RHJ's designs and patents and put him in a do-nothing job with nothing to say about the destiny of his brain child. Robert Hope Jones became so depressed that he implemented one last invention on September 13, 1914, a way to take gas to kill himself without endangering anyone else in his rooming house. He ran a tube from the lighting fixture above his bed and fitted it with a T outlet. One end was taped in place in his mouth. His nose was taped shut and a flame lighted to burn the gas escaping from the other end of the T so that even after he died, there would be no escaping gas.

There is an O.Henry story about a rented room where a young woman took her life with gas and as the landlady is describing to her neighbor how she worked so hard to eliminate any traces of the suicide and kept the secret of the suicide in the room from the newest lodger, the newest lodger is in the room using the gas to take his own life.

http://https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaphone

 

[tomturbomatic]

How an old fog horn works. This is a really neat video and a really neat guy guiding tourists through the whole operation.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdL4wiE8rYk

 

[rp2813]

Tom, thanks for posting the link to that video!  It hit all the marks.  Not only did it contain a reference to an automatic washer timer, but also evoked erotica with its view inside the compressor.

 

Something tells me the relatively small boxed horn in the OP may not be complete, or could require some major muscle to get it to make any noise.  I have a feeling it may have come off something like a buoy or breakwater signal.  We were just at Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing last week and I heard such a signal outside of the restaurant.  It wasn't nearly as impressive as the one in the video.

 

[tomturbomatic]

You are most welcome, my friend!

When I saw the word "erotica," I thought that you were going to mention the guide. He clearly liked machinery and and was able to explain it so that people understood it. I looked for a wedding band and did not see one.

Starting diesels is serious business. I have seen videos of starting a train engine and the thing looks, sounds and acts like it is going to blow up before it gets running steadily. When I was in college, I knew someone who drove a diesel Mercedes in Atlanta. We did not generally have extremely cold weather, but on one occasion we did and he could not drive the car to work because at those temperatures it needed to have kerosene mixed with the fuel to keep it from jelling, but if the weather warmed up while you had that mixture in the tank, the engine would explode, he said. In a more norther climate the diesel would have been blended for the cold weather.

The link is to an engine just after starting as it tries to get going. It reminds me of a bad morning in the bathroom or Howard's mother when she was preparing for her colonoscopy and said that she felt like an upside down volcano. This one is right side up and has a long way to go before it smooths out.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXkPXOpeyX4

 

[tomturbomatic]

Imagine starting something like this in your driveway early in the morning! I really love big machines and their noises, not so much loud as funny. I wonder if a diesel back up generator could make neat sounds like this.

http://tune.pk/video/3845970/cold-start-diesel-locomotive

 

[kimball455]

Organ Diaphone

Boardwalk Hall Atlantic City has a 64 foot Diaphone. The link shows it in operation.

Harry

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wonLE3QZfnI

 

[askolover]

Loved the foghorn video for a number of reasons, I love mechanical and technical things.  I found videos on Youtube of how to build an air horn (link below).  Diesels fascinate me, hence the reason I drive one and have owned three.  I hate the VW scandal as diesels were beginning to take off here since most of the younger drivers now don't remember the GM diesel problems of the 70's and early 80's.  I've started my VW TDI after cold overnight parking at work down to 0F without any troubles, but I treat my fuel year round with Power Service diesel additive, silver for summer and white for winter.  Love steam engines too, especially like on the Steamboat Natchez in New Orleans.  Whatever that horn is in the OP I'd love to hear it.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIoWuCM0IHo

 

[tolivac]

Foghorns,Diaphones,Diesel motors-like them all!I have a DVD recording of the Auditorium Organ that shows its 64' Diaphone in operation as shown.From listening on the DVD and on the link it sounds like a large low speed diesel engine-live,to the ear sure it sounds different.And I am sure the LF fundamental frequency is enough to shake you!And when you listen to the Diaphone recorded-only very few speakers could reproduce its fundamental tone.And to reproduce that sound will require LOTS of amplifier power!LF speakers are not efficient.
Diesel Motor-we have a 2.2MW Caterpillar 4160V 3Ph genset at the site.It has a Cat 3816 series engine-16 cylinder 3000 Hp max.Ours has two 24V starter motors and it can be started remotely from our station control room,or automatically in case of power failure.The Cat 3816 is said to be used in some locos-according to the Cat techs that service our engine.
Forghorn-There was a man that used to work here-he retired,he was a member of the Coast Guard.One of his duties was maintaining lighthouses and their foghorns.The ones he dealt with were electronic.No compressors or diaphone horns.He said he worked on the last generation of foghorns.The electronic ones replaced many of the air powered ones-were cheaper to use and maintain.Their equipment took up less space.The air ones-well are just more spectacular.The side cylinder recip compressor used in the SF one was like an Ingersol Rand Compressor the DC plant building used before it was replaced by a Quincy rotary screw compressor-these supplied the building air.Each was 60Hp.Remember that old IR compressor going "thump-Thump-thmp" thru the headphones in some of the studios when the mics were opened and console gain turned up!The Quincy just makes a Hum and you have to be by it to hear it.The transmitter plant has two 10 Hp compressors for shop-building air,two 1Hp for HVAC system air,and 2 5Hp for switchbay air.Gardner Denver for the first two-Ingersoll Rand for switchbay.I just have to make sure these are running OK.Part of supervisor building checks.