Projects I built some new "Tug Boat" air cleaners

I just finished a new pair of air cleaners. These were patterned from some ancient originals I got at the Back-to-the-Fifties swap meet a decade ago or more. So I am assuming since the originals were crude and from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, they probably came from a boat. Hence the Tug Boat moniker.

I cleaned up one original shell, modified it here and there to clean it up and make it function better, and had some new castings made. A bit of machining, sanding and polishing, and trimming of the filter materials, and here they are.



I was originally thinking I could make them to sell to tug boat restorers, but they took a LOT more labor to finish than I could ever get my $$ back out of. I'll have to fine tune the process a bit to be able to bring them to market. And the count of tug boat restorers is rather small anyway.

They have a foam filter media in the center, which is probably more thorough than the wad of copper mesh in the original filter.

Whattya think?

 

I can totally appreciate the craftsmanship but way too square for my liking. Reminds me of the filter in my home's AC.

 

Beat me to it, My thought as well. Cool cleaners.

 

Flame arrestors

 

not bad for a white boy...

 

How much of the process did you do at home? I belive you sent out the dash panels to a foundry but poured the remote oil mount at home correct?

Any closer to the Truck dash panel?

 

Cool

 

These aren't really flame arrestors as they would not stop any backfire (required for use in an enclosed hull boat). I didn't want to call them that to confuse the issue.

I make the patterns at home, send them out to pour at a real foundry, then do all the rest at home.

I actually have my next dash panel 99.99% ready to debut, except when I was buffing it I nicked it on the framework of the buffer. Didn't have any time to sand that out to finish it that day, but hope to have it ready by the end of the week.

 

a Minnesota state bird ( mosquito) guard . but they do look nice .

 

Might be a little small for a tug boat engine, but just right for the top of a stromberg.

 

Tommy is correct on the flame arrestors, rather than an air cleaner. Boats have no need for an air "cleaner". Those early arrestors were only made to prevent an actual fire with flames that would burn uncontrolled.

..they were never meant to prevent bilge fume explosions.