Coats engine test by C. A. Norman mentioned in Bentley's book?

Old Time Steam Cars by John Bentley reports "a glowing letter from Professor C. A. Norman, Professor of Machine Design at Ohio State University who, in September 1922, tested the Coats steam engine."

I have looked for articles in technical and automotive publications and don't find anything. Can someone tell me where this information might be located?

Karl Petersen

perhaps this might be it

EBAY ,the old car book 168



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2016 07:56PM by DougW.

If anyone knows where Norman's report is, I would also dearly love to know. I also searched a large variety of technical and trade journals without success; more importantly, I couldn't even find reference to it in any contemporaneous engineering publication indexes or "Reader's Guides". Maybe part of the problem is that the test occurred in September 1922, which is about when current laws start prohibiting the unauthorized publication of copyrighted material. By January 1923 the number of relevant online resources shrinks greatly. I did find a bunch of tidbits on various steam automobiles but nothing new applying to the Coats engine.

Ken

Perhaps something is still on file at Ohio State. At one time they published reprints of some of his work -

[books.google.com]

They did tests on steam engines -

[kb.osu.edu]

Maybe this test was someone else's thesis and not necessarily filed under Norman's name.

Carl Adolph Norman (Norrman) was born in Finland about 1880. A mechanical engineering professor at Ohio State for many years, he died in 1969. It looks like 3 grandchildren are still living in Ohio and Minnesota - perhaps one of them would have some knowledge of their grandfather's papers.

Kelly

Hi Kelly,

I'll try checking with OSU, even though it is the center of all evil in the universe. (I went to U of M for a while! :-) ). Still trying to run down an article on the Endurance steamer test drive, you'd think 94 year old articles in regional magazines would be much easier to find!

Regards,

Ken

There was no testing done by C. A. Norman. Bentley's enthusiasm fails the reality check.

Professor Norman was asked or paid to review the latest Coats design in which Charles French added his steam generator and auxiliary engine to the chassis with the flat 3 uniflow engine of the second Sakuyama design. Norman thought it was very nice and went on to note the various advantages of steam over gas cars. There is no suggestion that he ever saw any hardware.

Norman's letter dated October 18, 1922 was published in the stock offering for the new Ohio corporation. An image of this was sent to me by Don Hoke. It is part of the extensive H. H. Stewart collection which he is putting together in an impressive book for the Virtual Steam Car Museum.

Karl Petersen

OK, that makes sense. I was starting to doubt that Norman had actually run any tests based on the sheer lack of online references but especially because it was in the Bentley book. His entry on the Baker bus confuses the Roto-Baker system developed by William E Baker of Ohio with the product developed by Hartley O Baker of Colorado. To make it better he credits the whole thing to a nonexistent "AO Baker", the only way I can make that work is if I assume he somehow further mixed William,s uncle Abner D Baker (of the famous valve gear and uniflow traction engines and also of Ohio) into the mix. OK, on further review, you would get one heck of a designer if you could somehow weld Abner, Hartley and William into a single entity.....

Ken