At the Fern Ridge messabout I mentioned that I was reading Engines Afloat (vol I and II) by Stan Grayson and John K. suggested  Internal Fire: The Internal-Combustion Engine 1673-1900 by C. Lyle Cummins.   While Internal Fire is a drier read than Engines Afloat, it filled in what was omitted from my Diesel and Steam engineering classes in college.  I was taught that internal combustion engine development started in the 1880’s; first with two stroke engines then with 4 stroke.  The whole atmospheric engine development and the fathers of modern two stroke gas engines: Dugald Clerk and Joseph Day, was omitted.  Available in from LINCC


Handloggers by W. H. Jackson and Ethel Dassow tells the story of Bill ‘Handlogger” Jackson in the first half of the 20th century.  While I don’t approve of killing wolves for bounty I did like his philosophy of only taking what you needed.  An easy enjoyable read.  Available from the Salem Community College Library.


If you work in the aerospace industry, a scary book that will keep you up at night is Space Systems Failures: Disasters and Rescues of Satellites, Rocket and Space Probes by David M. Harland and Ralph D. Lorenz.  It is amazing how mistakes, oversights or misunderstandings can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.   Available from Amazon.


My current book is Mid Size Power Boats: A Guide for Discriminating Buyers by David Pascoe.  This is an excellent book for not what to do when designing and building boats.  From Pascoe’s perspective new boat builders keep repeating mistakes learned in the past. Many bad examples provided by SeaRay.   An enjoyable read if you are interested in designing and building boats.  Available from www.yachtsurvey.com


Do you have any books you can recommend or are reading this summer.

Randy

I've been reading too much news. :o( My boating literature fix has been been coming mostly from the boat magazines -- Small Craft Advisor (every Coot should read it, especially since MAIB is gone), Water Craft, 48 North, and WoodenBoat. But I have read some books...

Texas Coot Gerard recommended Canoeing With the Cree, by Eric Sevaried. I already had it in my book stash, so dug in. After graduating from high school in 1931, 17-year-old Sevareid and a friend a couple of years older set out to canoe from Minneapolis to Hudson's Bay! Sevaried was already a budding journalist, and salesman <g>. He convinced the publisher of the Minneapolis Star to sponsor the trip, if Sevaried filed reports whenever he could. The newspaper put up $50 to get them started, and promised another $50 when (if) they reached Hudson's Bay. The first part of the trip involved paddling 500 miles _up_ the Minnesota River. After a short portage to the Red River of the North it was all downhill, but the travails were by no means over. Later in life he wrote that the trip from Lake Winnipeg to Hudson's Bay was even more miserable than he'd related in the book. Sevareid was 22 when he wrote Canoeing With the Cree, but it's well written and a Good Read.

After being introduced to Eric Sevaried's writing I decided to read the memoir he wrote at the ripe old age of 32, Not So Wild a Dream. It may sound presumptious to write a memoir at 32, but he'd just been through the buildup to WW II in Europe, and the war itself. He went to France in 1937 as a print news correspondent, then he was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to become a radio news correspondent. He and his wife visited Germany, he was on the ground during the fall of France, fled to England and experienced the Battle of Britain in London. After spending some time in the States and South America he was sent to Chunking to report on Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government. There was a bit of a detour after the transport plane that was flying him over the Hump from India crashed... I'm still working on the book, but I know the ending -- he survives the war. <g> A very interesting read. Unfortunately, some of what he writes about feels familiar today. <sigh>

Over at the "beach cottage" in Florence I've got a book by another newsman, Ernie Pyle. In the thirties Pyle was a roving reporter of human-interest stories for the Scripps-Howard newspapers. After his death some of the columns were collected in the book I have -- Home Country. It's a fun book to pick up now and then to read for a little while, maybe while sitting on the throne, since the stories are short and stand on their own. Pyle's writing is witty, and the characters he finds are interesting. The book is an engaging look at a bygone era. "G.B. ('Deac') Parker, editor-in-chief of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, said he had found in Pyle's vacation articles 'a sort of Mark Twain quality and they knocked my eyes right out'."

Small Craft Advisor (SCA)
https://smallcraftadvisor.com/

Water Craft
https://www.watercraft-magazine.com/

48 North (free at boat dealers and marine supply stores)
https://48north.com/

WoodenBoat
https://www.woodenboat.com/

Canoeing With the Cree
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&tn=canoeing%20with%20the%20Cree

Not So Wild a Dream
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=sevareid&bi=0&bx=off&cm_sp=SearchF-_-Advs-_-Result&ds=30&recentlyadded=all&rollup=on&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=Not%20so%20Wild%20a%20Dream&xdesc=off&xpod=off

Canoeing With the Cree and Not So Wild a Dream are available as electronic books (don't be put off by the interminable forward to the 1976 edition)
https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=sevareid&i=digital-text&crid=1I3AOT1VLOHPB&sprefix=severed%2Cdigital-text%2C180&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Home Country
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&tn=Home%20Country&an=pyle

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John <jkohnen@...>
I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book. (Groucho Marx)


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On 7/31/2022 11:22 AM, Randy T wrote:

At the Fern Ridge messabout I mentioned that I was reading Engines Afloat (vol I and II) by Stan Grayson and John K. suggested  Internal Fire: The Internal-Combustion Engine 1673-1900 by C. Lyle Cummins.
...

I enjoyed Lyle Cummin's about his dad, Clessie, and the history of his involvement with the development of Diesel engines -- The Diesel Odyssey of Clessie Cummins:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=The%20Diesel%20Odyssey%20of%20Clessie%20Cummins&sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results

Handloggers by W. H. Jackson and Ethel Dassow tells the story of Bill ‘Handlogger” Jackson in the first half of the 20th century.
...

A fine account of industrial logging in the early 20th century is Big Sam:

https://smile.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/083230476X/themotherofal-20

http://www.ochcom.org/churchill/

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John <jkohnen@...>
The trouble with the school of experience is that the graduates are too old to go to work. (Henry Ford)


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You had me with the "development of the Diesel Engine". Both of those books are available from LINCC so I put them on hold.

Randy

Clessie Cummins wasn't one of the pioneers in developing Diesel engines, his contribution was developing light, high-speed Diesels suitable for use in trucks and smaller watercraft. For many years Cummins entered Diesel powered racecars in the Indy 500!

Lyle Cummins wrote a book about the early development of Diesel engines -- Diesel's Engine: From Conception to 1918, published in 1993 by Carnot Press. I haven't read it, yet.

There's a newer book with a similar cover, published in 2022 by by Octane Press -- Diesel's Engine : The Man and the Evolution of the World's Most Efficient Internal Combustion Motor. I don't know if it's the same book or an expanded edition (is Lyle Cummins still alive>), but there's a Kindle version available:

https://smile.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN//B09WW46L4D/themotherofal-20

If you want to take a sidetrip into a fascinating dead-end technology that nonetheless stayed popular in Scandinavia until maybe 50 years ago and, I read once, Korea for a similar period (maybe they still use them in North Korea <g>) try:

http://www.coots.org/Misc/HotBulbOilEnginesAndSuitableVessels.pdf

Hot bulb engines sound wonderful. :o)

On 8/1/2022 7:52 PM, Randy T wrote:

You had me with the "development of the Diesel Engine". Both of those books are available from LINCC so I put them on hold.
...

I enjoyed Lyle Cummin's about his dad, Clessie, and the history of his

involvement with the development of Diesel engines -- The Diesel Odyssey
of Clessie Cummins:

A fine account of industrial logging in the early 20th century is Big Sam:

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John <jkohnen@...>
The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. (Harry S Truman)


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I had two classe in Diesel engineering for my degree in Marine Engineering. This was was either in '81 or '82 and we had one lecture on hot bulb engines. IIRC hot bulb engines were built in the US until the late '60's. They had a niche in mines because of their low emissions. They also found use in auxiliaries because of the low cost compared to true diesels. Hot bulb engines can be build as either 2 stroke with an air pump or four stoke. The start up of a hot bulb engine can take a long time (up to 10 minutes) to heat the bulbs with a blow torch.

The other way to start a hot bulb engine was to use a wick. The wick was made from cotton and charcoal; it was lit and then put in the bulb via a port for that purpose. Once there were wicks in each cylinder the engine would be turned over either by a starter or by hand. Fuel is injected into the bulb when the piston was just before top dead center. The engine is run at idle until the bulbs are hot from combustion.

I talked to a marine engine who operated a hot bulb engine that was the auxiliary power on fishing boat built in Sweden and later converted to a sailing yacht. He said the wicks were not available so he made them out of road flares. He would cut the flare into strips and then light them, put them in the port for the wicks and then turn the engine over with an air starter. He said that he could start the engine and be ready to maneuver in less than 5 minutes.

Old low speed Diesels have a way to release compression so the engine can be turned over until the engine was at starting speed the compression was restored, the engine turned over for a few revolutions to heat up the cylinders then fuel was turned on. I suspect that hot bulb engine would have had something similar. Semi-Diesel and oil engines would be started on a light fuel like natha or gasoline and then switch to a heavier fuel; I suspect that hot bulb engines could be started the same way.

My interest in Diesel engines lie in the companies who tried to take this new technology and make it affordable and reliable. The history of the Gardener brothers is very interesting; they wanted to build engines their way and won't adapt to changing needs and slowly faded away. They did last 130 years though. https://www.amazon.com/Gardner-Limited-Legendary-Engineering-Excellence/dp/1906853886. There are several companies that rebuild these engineers.

Randy