Parker Steam Engines

[Richard Flanders]

If it's steam power you want, here's some good ones from my 2008 project. This includes a boiler that I think was never fired, a single-cyl compressor of sorts that was going to be run in reverse by steam, and a lumber planer/edger that was going to be driven by a belt off the large flywheel on the compressor. This stuff originated in Dawson City and was dragged onto this property in the spring of 1937. I think they encountered soft snow and thaw and couldn't get past here and just dumped it and never tried to get it the last mile to the mill area. I first landed on this pile in 1978, my first year working as a geologist in Alaska, and got a very nice brass plate off the boiler, which is on the wall in my outhouse. The heavy copper under my woodstover here in the house came from the mill on this property. I'm sure this compressor, or whatever it's properly called, and the planer could be restored to working condition with minimal effort. This stuff is only 100mi out of Fairbanks.

The drive wheel for the hydro house at the mine isn't a typical cast Pelton wheel. It's a series of steel blades on a spindle inside a steel drum. The 'wheel' unit inside the drum isn't that large. There are real Pelton wheels outside, one the largest I've ever seen, that predate the unit inside. See pic added to the original post. The governor is an interesting unit for sure.