jacksdad Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 In a chance discussion today with my father in law over getting some fire wood, he mentioned that the farm up the road (where he has just brought some wood) has a German ww1 submarine compressor, which has a huge fly wheel on it. So my ears pricked up. Apparently it was confiscated after the war as reparations and ended up here in NZ. It was given to the current owner a while ago by the previous owner who was selling their farm and did not want to see it sent for scrap metal. The radiator is the size of a chair according to what I was told and it came out of a sub built in 1906 according to a sign. Served in ww1. The radiator is about 70mm thick - It may have come from a disbanded local museum as it has a small notice board attached that spells out the providence and apparently states that this is one of only two known to remain. It currently is sitting in a paddock according to my father in Law and the current owner has no idea what to do with it. Next time I am down at the farm I will go and visit and take some photos. We tried to work out what it would have run on? Would it have been electric and if so why would it have a radiator? But all sounds very interesting. Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 The first German U boat U-1 was built 1905/6. Apart from a few French and British steam powered subs WW1 submarines had an internal combustion engine (petrol or diesel) for surface running and electric for submerged operation. The internal combustion engine also ran a generator to charge the batteries of the electric motor. AFAIK compressed air came 'bottled'. Could your compressor be from a submarine depot or mother ship? Alternatively compressed air was used in underwater (submarine) engineering works (to keep the water out of the workings) and some fairly hefty internal combustion powered compressors were (and still are) used. These could be called submarine compressors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricasso Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 The first German U boat U-1 was built 1905/6. Apart from a few French and British steam powered subs WW1 submarines had an internal combustion engine (petrol or diesel) for surface running and electric for submerged operation. The internal combustion engine also ran a generator to charge the batteries of the electric motor. AFAIK compressed air came 'bottled'. Could your compressor be from a submarine depot or mother ship? Alternatively compressed air was used in underwater (submarine) engineering works (to keep the water out of the workings) and some fairly hefty internal combustion powered compressors were (and still are) used. These could be called submarine compressors. Wasn't compressed air used to empty the flooded tanks to allow it to surface as in WW11 subs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 Wasn't compressed air used to empty the flooded tanks to allow it to surface as in WW11 subs? Yes of course using 'bottled' compressed air as I suggested - ie in cylinders which would be filled using a compressor on a depot ship. The torpedoes' tanks might well be filled from the same source. You wouldn't want to produce compressed air in a submerged boat using a compressor driven by an internal combustion engine - not in the days before the snorkel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricasso Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 Yes of course using 'bottled' compressed air as I suggested - ie in cylinders which would be filled using a compressor on a depot ship. The torpedoes' tanks might well be filled from the same source. You wouldn't want to produce compressed air in a submerged boat using a compressor driven by an internal combustion engine - not in the days before the snorkel. I think the answer lies here http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/archives/texts/uboatu9.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John-B-Rooks Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 Surely Centurion, submarines in WW1 (and 2) spent as much time as they could getting from A to B on the surface because they could travel that much faster. Also if the compressed air couldn't be replenished on-the-go, then the number of times that one could submerge would be severely limited. Just a thought! John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 On early submarines, small compressors were used for some hydraulic systems, torpedo ejection, and for starting of the diesel engines. By definition they were electrically driven. The compressor in the OP has a radiator and therefore is internal combustion driven and is unlikely to be one of these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 Surely Centurion, submarines in WW1 (and 2) spent as much time as they could getting from A to B on the surface because they could travel that much faster. Also if the compressed air couldn't be replenished on-the-go, then the number of times that one could submerge would be severely limited. Just a thought! John. Could you replenish fuel on the go? In any case your logic is odd - if they spent most of their time on the surface they wouldn't submerge that often. In fact except in emergency or operational urgency they wouldn't use compressed air to blow the tanks. Blowers and pumps would do the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Cove Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 U-1, commissioned December 1906, used 2 Kerosene engines to drive propeller shafts and electrical generators. Diesel engines were introduced into U-boats just before WW1. All auxiliary machinery was driven by d.c. electric motor. Compressed air was used to blow main ballast tanks, in best movie tradition, and to eject torpedoes from the tube(s). Air gets hot when compressed so a radiator seems logical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 U-1 still exists in the Deutsches Museum in Munich http://www.deutsches...-exhibition/u1/ and appears to still have all its essential machinery intact. It had 2 electric motors.It used compressed air from cylinders for blowing tanks in emergency. Its Korting kerosene engines were started using electrically heated air. No other U boat built in 1906. Wherever the compressor in the OP comes from U-1 appears unlikely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
durhamdave Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 could the radiator be an oil cooler or heat exchanger or has the aire end of the compresor been coverted from electric to internal combustion power Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 U-1, commissioned December 1906, used 2 Kerosene engines to drive propeller shafts and electrical generators. Diesel engines were introduced into U-boats just before WW1. All auxiliary machinery was driven by d.c. electric motor. Compressed air was used to blow main ballast tanks, in best movie tradition, and to eject torpedoes from the tube(s). Air gets hot when compressed so a radiator seems logical. So you run the hot compressed air through a radiator? Which has to be able to withstand the pressure ? Which makes it a pretty big and rugged structure (and a poor radiator). Logical - not really Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centurion Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 could the radiator be an oil cooler or heat exchanger or has the aire end of the compresor been coverted from electric to internal combustion power All things are possible but it seems very unlikely that this compressor was part of U-1 built in 1906 "confiscated after the war as reparations ". Given that U-1 is still in Germany. The "huge fly wheel" mentioned makes it sound very like some of the old compressors used by the likes of BOC (some of which were still around when I worked for them back in the 70s) for charging up cylinders which is why I wondered if it had come out of a German submarine depot ship. U-1 must have had a depot ship in 1906/7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Cove Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 Here's a modern equivalent for a Japanese tanker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricasso Posted 21 May , 2013 Share Posted 21 May , 2013 It would seem that a lot of faith is being put into a "sign" on an old compressor sitting in a field, when no one knows for sure the accuracy of it, without photos its all supposition that the sign is 100% correct, if ,as Centurion has stated, the 1906 U boat is still extant then surely some doubt must be cast on the current evidence.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksdad Posted 22 May , 2013 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2013 I’ll try and get a selection of photos this weekend, as we now need to go down for a problem tenant that we have nearby in Pukekohe and I’ll do a trip to the farm then. It may well be that the sign states that these were from the sub’s first built from 1906 on. Or as centurion has stated from a depot ship, as the conversation started off (with the Father in law(FiL)) about a big old fly wheel, which was part of a German sub according to the farmer and sign. The pictured radiator looks similar to what I also recall being told that my FiL yesterday that he put his fingers into the grill of the radiator which was still in good condition and being that the Fil has big old farmer fingers and vice grip hand shake - the gaps in the pictured radiator would fit that description. thanks for the photo Old Cove. Bearing in mind that all the info I have is second hand and my father in law would have taken only passing interest in the object and sign. If it was a rusty 100 yr old tractor engine - he would have been able to describe it in minute detail and produce drawing that he did - ww1 sub compressors is not high on his interest list - so hopefully I can get into the paddock and see it otherwise it all third hand information. Although the sign would suggest that at some time it was on view. I am surmising that it is not an object d’art as the local Museum of Technology up here in Auckland has apparently refused an offer to give it to them. Cheers Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Colkan Posted 3 June , 2013 Share Posted 3 June , 2013 Hi Guys, The mystery compressor is well known to me. In 1975 I dug it out of the long grass when I found it in Huntley where it had been discarded. I moved the bits to Whangarei and spent 2 years rebuilding it and finally got her running and pumping 110 cfm at 3000 psi in 1977. she was part of the reparations of war from Germany in the 1920's but she was never ever in a submarine. That is a story invented by her recent owners before they scrapped her last year because the electric motor caught on fire due to lack of maintenance. The compressor was made by Messa Kompressoren pre 1910 ( I don't know the actual year) and her original duties were in a gas production facility producing oxygen for the German war effort. The story go's that 2 x confiscated Messa compressor's arrived in NZ and upon receipt by the NZ government were gifted to Mason Mesco ( NZ's first fractionation gas plant) and provided good service producing oxygen, nitrogen and other minor gas's for NZ industrial use until approximately 1970 when they were replaced by 3 much bigger American manufactured Norwalk Compressors. Both the Messa units were sold for scrap with only one reappearing in Huntley with the then owners intention of restoring her for use as a scuba cylinder filling station. He gave up almost immediately for reasons unknown to me and the compressor lay in a paddock for 4 or 5 years. As a teenager I had been taught by my father and Grandfather to hand fit metal bearings and rings etc and with their encouragement started the task of rebuild. At the time I was 25 and, un beknown to me at the time, she was to consume 2 years of my life and determine my future career. I sold her as part of my dive business in 1980 with the new owner (Dene Huntington) having the same passion and caring for old machinery as I did and she continued to operate reliably until he sold the business in early 2000. I have lived in Australia for the last 30 years as the managing director of a successful compressor company and last year received a phone call from a NZ associate to advise me that my baby had caught fire and was to be scrapped. I immediately contacted the then owner who advised me that he had already started the scrap process by selling the oil bath starter and bronze backed bearings and anything else that was shiney. I could buy what was left at scrap value which he indicated was around $5000 and I would have to remove her and restore the building to an acceptable level. This was not logistically possible for me from Australia and with a tear in my eye I declined. She was the oldest operating high pressure air compressor in the world but to replace those items that were scrapped would be virtually impossible. Some people in Whangarei tried to save her and have her now but she will never run again. I have pictures if anyone is interested. Email me cww@colkan.com regards Col Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Colkan Posted 4 June , 2013 Share Posted 4 June , 2013 Sorry! I forgot to mention that as a 4 stage compressor she was fitted with a large but simple water system to cool the air between stages of compression which consisted of a heat ex changer mounted on top of her first stage cylinder and a series of heavy walled steel pipe coils which sat in a water bath on the floor under her horizontal single stepped piston and cylinder arrangement. The water bath and coil arrangement could be mistaken as a radiator by the inexperienced. Regards Col Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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