Detroit Motor Company Bipolar Fan - Information Needed

[Mel Lagarde]

I have recently acquired this fan motor and will restore the fan to operate as it should.   I have searched the old forum platform and cannot find one image of this fan.   I see our historians have researched this in the past but the images and patents found are not of this model.    The fan motor seems complete but I would like to see what blade wing shape, wing count, and spider, was offered with this motor.    
 

This may be a tall ask but if anyone can help me I would be most appreciated.   
 

I have included images of the fan as it sits on my bench today.  
 

My best to all,

 

Mel

[Russ Huber]

Mel, Alan Wilms in past posted a Detroit motor seeking info. which also turned out rather fruitless. Unfortunately for you, I don't see the Detroit concern showing images so far from a marketing aspect of their fan motors. I THINK a select few like yourself owned one, namely dentists. I can't pin down a Harry Blades patent so far related to a fan motor.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Russ Huber]

Edited February 27, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Russ Huber]

1498386197682806436-00396725 (storage.googleapis.com)

[Russ Huber]

Phillip Diehl patented a motor the same day.

 

1498390693235250728-00350728 (storage.googleapis.com)

Edited February 27, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Russ Huber]

Loren Haroldson posted this 89 book link below in past.  Fan motor momentum started kicking in early 90s. Why the Detroit fan motors are so hard to pin down..?? I would say yours dates 90s(?), Mel.  Maybe Steve Rockwell or Jim Kovar can surprise you? 

 

The Electrical World - Google Books

[Jim Kovar]

4 hours ago, Russ Huber said:

Maybe...  ...Jim Kovar can surprise you?

Surprise!

[Jim Kovar]

 

[Mel Lagarde]

Russ and Jim,

 

I cannot thank you enough for your time researching this for me.   Detroit seems to have put their effort into marketing their motors to professional trades.    If they were seeking to developing a fan market they sure kept it a secret to themselves.    Not one mention of fan use thus far.  
 

Diehl announcing, what looks to be, the exact motor design on the exact same day is no coincidence.    Did Diehl make these motors for Detroit or maybe the other way around?   
 

I will get this gently restored keeping all as original as possible to make it operational.   It needs an iron stand and will come up with a proper scale six wing brass blade.   Since no images exist I am safe making it look like others of that time period.  
 

I appreciate the effort guys and thank you for posting your work.  Maybe this will be of help to others down the road. 
 

Mel

[Russ Huber]

3 hours ago, Mel Lagarde said:

Russ and Jim,

 

I cannot thank you enough for your time researching this for me.   Detroit seems to have put their effort into marketing their motors to professional trades.    If they were seeking to developing a fan market they sure kept it a secret to themselves.    Not one mention of fan use thus far.  
 

Diehl announcing, what looks to be, the exact motor design on the exact same day is no coincidence.    Did Diehl make these motors for Detroit or maybe the other way around?   
 

I will get this gently restored keeping all as original as possible to make it operational.   It needs an iron stand and will come up with a proper scale six wing brass blade.   Since no images exist I am safe making it look like others of that time period.  
 

I appreciate the effort guys and thank you for posting your work.  Maybe this will be of help to others down the road. 
 

Mel

Mel, 

I am sorry to confuse you. My mention of the Phillip Diehl patent has no connection to the Detroit concern. While scanning to find the Oct. 12, 1886 motor patent used by the Detroit concern shown above in post, I came across a Phillip Diehl motor patent same date.

Detroit Motor Company was using motors with fan in the 1880s. There is mention of this especially in the dental industry. 

What I cannot find in 80s 90s electrical trade is your specific motor design be it 80 or 90s, let alone with a fan motor blade on it.  I may have missed it in my scans?

[Russ Huber]

80s.

[Russ Huber]

The above postings are 1880s. Your motor design I have not seen in 1880s electrical trade.

[Mel Lagarde]

Thank you, Russ, for all the known information about this fan and clarifying for me the Diehl reference.   This motor was tough to find and not many are known.   I will post pictures when the restoration is complete.  
 

Mel

[Steve Rockwell]

     Here's what I can add... time constraints.....

That 1912 article gave Blades high praise for a controlling device (presumably the one mentioned in the first excerpt above)... and the Detroit Motor Co. long out of business...

   Another associated name, besides Blades, is Henry B. Slater, though it seems that Blades should be the focus of attention for Detroit Motor.

   The only way I could capture all this biographical material was putting it into a document to be pasted, so just scan down to the highlighted and enlarged portion... unless you want to read about a varied life, this guy seems to have been everywhere, more like two people than merely one:

 

 

     Henry B. Slater — Riverside for a number of years has been the

chosen home of a scientist and inventor whose name and work are

known to practically every student of metallurgy and the chemistry

of metals. The career of Henry B. Slater has been unlike that of

most men who has attained distinction in the field of scholarship.

The zest for adventure which impelled him as a youth to sail to all

ports and quarters of the civilized globe no doubt has been a factor

in the pursuit of knowledge which has characterized his later years.

   He was born at Birmingham. England. January 16. 1850. son of

Frederick and Ann (Stokes 1 ) Slater, both of old English families.

The Slater family runs back in Derbyshire for many generations.

His grandfather was a member of Wellington's staff. Frederick

Slater was a carter in England, an occupation better described in

this country as that of a transfer man. Henrv B. Slater has three

brothers and two sisters living; Tames, a retired business man at

Birmingham ; Fred, a gentleman farmer, now practically retired, of

Knowle and Birmingham : George, a Birmingham business man ; Mrs

Marie Fisher, wife of a business man at Irvington, New Jersey ; and

Sarah Jane, of Birmingham.

   Intellectual curiosity and the faculty of enterprise early matured

in the character of Henry B. Slater, and he was a mere child when

he made up his mind to see what the world was like outside of his

local environment. At the age of ten he ran away and tramped to

London, the romance of the sea appealing to him and he s ecured a

berth aboard the steamship "Pilot" of the General Steam Navigation

Company's line. He went on board as "call boy" at a time when no

ships were equipped with electric bells or telephones, and when verbal

messages had to be communicated from one part of the ship to another

by messenger boys. On the Pilot he made several trips between

London and Hamburg. He next joined the Sarah Scott, a full rigged

ship bound for the East Indies. On his eleventh birthday, in 1861,

he was going through the Mozambique Channel. The cruise con-

tinued to the East Indies, Australia, the Philippine Islands, Japan,

and in 1863 he sailed from Cebu, Philippine Islands, for London

by way of Honolulu, San Francisco and the Horn. The boat dis-

charged part of its cargo in San Francisco, thence departing, Decem-

ber 16, 1863, around the Horn and arriving in London in May, 1864.

Young Slater was afterward on different vessels on the French,

German and Danish coasts and in the White Sea at Archangel. While

at Jaffa in the Mediterranean he and three other shipmates took A. W.

O. L. and visited in Jerusalem a week. Returning to Jaffa they found

their vessel waiting for them.

   Still another trip around the world was made by way of Cape

Good Hope to the East Indies and back around the Horn. In 1868

he sailed from Newport, Wales, for Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the bark

Janet of Liverpool, Nova Scotia. During the next two years he was in

the coastal service out of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, to the West Indies

and South American ports. Wednesday, January 25, 1870, Mr. Slater

sailed from New York to Liverpool, Nova Scotia. The vessel en-

countered a heavy blow from the northwest, and the ship was lost.

The crew took to the ship's long boat and were exposed twenty-one

days before being rescued. There were eleven in the boat, but all

came through. That voyage of hardship coincided with the storm

when the City of Boston of the Inman line disappeared. This boat

left Halifax the last Saturday in January, 1870, and was never heard

from again.

   Mr. Slater made one more trip from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, to

the West Indies, with the understanding that he was to receive his

discharge in the United States. On arrival in New York in September,

1870, he was given his discharge and went to Cambridge, Massa-

chusetts. He remained there until 1874, by which time he had

completed his apprenticeship as a machinist with J. J. Walworth &

Company, now the Walworth Manufacturing Company. He then re-

visited England, returning to the United States late in the fall, and spent

the time until the spring of 1875 in and around Liverpool, Nova Scotia.

His early industrial experience was at Providence. Rhode Island, where

he worked for a time in the tool department of the Brown & Sharpe Man-

ufacturing Company and also in the Corliss Engine Works.

   Mr. Slater set out for California in 1876. Circumstances caused

him to abandon his journey and remain in Missouri, where he enrolled

as a student in Drurv College in Springfield. He pursued his studies

there until July. 1879, and then returned East and for a year was in

Brown University at Providence. Rhode Island. At Brown he studied

Greek under Benjamin Ide Wheeler, whose name is familiarly linked

with the University of California. While in Missouri Mr. Slater

contracted malaria, and this, together with pecuniary embarrassment,

caused him to give up the intention of completing his university

career.

   About that time he became associated with others in the business

of electro plating, and that was his specialty for some time. Nickel

plating was then in its infancy, and having made some improvements

   in the process he was employed by the Providence Tool Company of

Rhode Island to set up its plant to do its own plating. In 1882

he was employed by the Singer Manufacturing Company of Elizabeth,

New Jersey, to install the plating process there.

   During 1882-83-84-85, while with the Singer Company, Mr. Slater

became interested in chlorine, with special reference to its action

upon mineral contents of ores. His continued studies and experiments

of nearly forty years make him probably the foremost authority on

the use of chlorine in economic metallurgy. In 1889 he obtained a

patent for a process of extracting zinc from low grade ores, such as

those found in the Leadville district of Colorado, whither he had

removed in 1888. About that time he was also experimenting in

electrical generators and motors, and was granted several patents

for improvements on such machinery.

   Mr. Slater was in Colorado until 1902, when he removed to Cali-

fornia. For the past twenty years his time has been devoted

principally to research along metallurgical lines. He, has been as-

sociated for the last sixteen years with R. B. Sheldon, a prominent

Riverside business man, whose career is elsewhere sketched in this

publication. In the past eight years Mr. Slater has been granted

ten different patents on improvements in metallurgical processes.

The underlying principles in these processes involve the use of

chlorine generated electrolitically in combination with other sub-

stances in the formation of a leeching solution with which to extract

the metallic values from ores. Copper ores have been the chief

subject of his experimental work. Recently he has been engaged in

the problem of simplifying a process for making of what is known

as Dakin's solution, a chemical and medicinal preparation so success-

fully used in surgery during the late war by Dr. Alexis Carrel.

His aim is to arrange for production of this solution by those

without technical training through the simple application of an electric

current that will prepare it in the proper strength for immediate use.

   Mr. Slater has received many recognitions of his scientific attain-

ments. Drury College conferred upon him the honorary degree of

Master of Science in 1889. He was one of the founders of the

American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884. He is a member

of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers,

a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Asso-

ciation for the Advancement of Science, the National Geographic

Society, the Joint Technical Societies of Los Angeles. He is a

member of the Gamut Club of Los Angeles, Present Day Club of

Riverside, and Riverside Lodge No. 643, Benevolent and Protective

Order of Elks. Many years ago he was member for three years of

Company K, Fifth Regiment, of the Massachusetts State Militia.

He votes as a republican.

   September 19, 1889, at Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Slater married Miss

Minnie Osmond, a native of that city. Her father was an Englishman

by birth and a prominent physician at Cincinnati. Mrs. Slater died

in March, 1893, and is survived by one son, Edwin Osmond Slater.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Steve Rockwell

[Russ Huber]

Edit.

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Lane Shirey]

Good information!

[Russ Huber]

1886 Detroit motor patent from Frank Fisher.

[Russ Huber]

Later, Harry Blades adds some modifications to Frank's concept for Detroit Motor Co.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Russ Huber]

Edit.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Jeff Lumsden]

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Electricity_Its_Application_in_Medicine/ApcaAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

1891 - Detroit Electric Motor Co...does this rheostatic foot pedal look familiar? 

It appears that Detroit Motor Co was also referred to as Detroit Electric Motor Co or is it just a mistake by the author?

[Russ Huber]

14 minutes ago, Jeff Lumsden said:

It appears that Detroit Motor Co was also referred to as Detroit Electric Motor Co or is it just a mistake by the author?

1891.

[Russ Huber]

The Fisher motor got the ball rolling for the Detroit Motor Co.  established in 86. In 89 Fisher got his own ball rolling with the Fisher Electric Works.

[Russ Huber]

This is the guy who changed the look of the Detroit Motor Co. motor/dynamo.

[Russ Huber]

Edit

Edited March 1, 2023 by Russ Huber

[Jeff Lumsden]

Financial troubles?

I'm guessing if in a 1907 book, the case was prior to?