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1904 GE cake


Kim Frank

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Have you ever looked at something and wondered what were they thinking? Occassionally I'll run across something that makes me stop and scratch my head. Anyhow, I have a 1904 GE cake that I'm unrestoring. It unfortunately went thru a fantastic restoration a few years ago and I'm just now trying to bring it back. The whole fan has been a " what were they thinking'" project.  And it seems that each time I see something, shake my head, and move on, I run into something even weirder. It starts with a trunnion that had it's stem broken. Instead of repairing it, two holes were drilled and allen head set screws were put in place. Then the blade had some creases in the wings. They were hammered back into being sort of straight. The cage had some s-wires come unpinned from the rear ring. Instead of fixing them, they were brazed back into place.  All of that has been addressed. The stem on the trunnion is fixed, the holes in the base repaired, cage is repaired, and the blade disassembled, creases in the wings rolled out, reassembled and balanced. Some hammer marks I left as a reminder. The cast iron is in paint, and all the brass has been unpolished and aged. I was starting on the electrics over the weekend and then got to the choke coil....what can I say... WTF was he thinking???

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Edited by Kim Frank
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Next weekend I guess I'll shake my head and address this mess......I remember this guy telling me years ago that he wanted to be a fan restorer in the worst way...I think he reached his goal.

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34 minutes ago, Kim Frank said:

Next weekend I guess I'll shake my head and address this mess......I remember this guy telling me years ago that he wanted to be a fan restorer in the worst way...I think he reached his goal.

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Gotta love fire engine red. I picked up one of Kim's favorite fans yesterday. I too was very impressed with the INVOLVED repair done on the head wire. Electrical tape goes a long way. It even runs on 2 distinct speeds in the 1 and 3 positions. Can't wait to drop the switch to see what went on in there. 🙂

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Wow, Redneck Ingenuity at its finest! Hope he didn't get a chance to restore many more fans before reaching his goal.

 

Nice work on the redo Kim Frank.

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3 hours ago, Kim Frank said:

Next weekend I guess I'll shake my head and address this mess......I remember this guy telling me years ago that he wanted to be a fan restorer in the worst way...I think he reached his goal.

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As retired Fire Dept. I love the red.   Hey, once you put it all together and paint it you won’t see it anyway so why let it concern you?  What you don’t see won’t hurt ya, right?   Hey, if I was concerned about the wiring I’d just add more electrical tape…..red, of course !    Matchy matchy….

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3 hours ago, Scott Braswell said:

Wow, Redneck Ingenuity at its finest! Hope he didn't get a chance to restore many more fans before reaching his goal.

 

Nice work on the redo Kim Frank.

He achieved 'Worst Way' restorer badge FIRST TRY! 🙌

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30 minutes ago, Roger Borg said:

Despite the questionable methods, I'm curious if despite all that mess the coil was still operational...

"I JB-Welded, it hel- 💣💥💥💥!"

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Yes, the choke coil has good readings. It's very rare that a coil can't be brought back to working condition. My goal for this fan isn't to completely erase the fantasticrestoration from it, just make it a bit less fantastical. I'll probably wipe the lipstick off the coils instead of rewinding them since I'm getting good reading from them. It should be close to done in the next couple weeks. I'll do some befores and afters when it's ready.

Keep us appraised on the repair of your fan Russ...

Edited by Kim Frank
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11 hours ago, Kim Frank said:

...went thru a fantastic restoration...  ...now trying to bring it back.

Will it still "look great on any corporate boardroom table" when you're done with it, Kim?

Edited by Jim Kovar
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On 4/24/2023 at 2:49 PM, Jim Kovar said:

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Is this the brand that
the really fantastic
restorers use?

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This is the russian brand bandage used in ukrainian war.

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Here it is with the Fantastic removed. It no longer turns heads, no longer looks good on a corporate boardroom table, no longer has polished windings, and it's bushings, if any, were not replaced....A few years ago I would have been tempted to have done this treatment to it...but I get tired of hate mail...lol.

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33 minutes ago, Kim Frank said:

Here it is with the Fantastic removed. It no longer turns heads, no longer looks good on a corporate boardroom table, no longer has polished windings, and it's bushings, if any, were not replaced....A few years ago I would have been tempted to have done this treatment to it...but I get tired of hate mail...lol.

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If not overly elaborate, I'm wondering what process you used to patina the blades? 

I'm in the "let its age show" camp, and curious how that can be recreated if need be.

Thanks...

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Yes, it was one of those. I have a couple of his restos in my collection. Each time I got one, usually from Ebay, I would put it directly into the line up. After a while, it would eat on me and I'd have to "get the Fantastic" out of it. This one was no different. I looked at it as long as I could, then had to do something for it. I was thinking about swapping it out with the model in my collection but decided to let it go to someone else. In the future, I believe it will be a wallmount.

 

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3 hours ago, Kim Frank said:

It...  ...no longer looks good on a corporate boardroom table...

Had it been Foss-ified,
it still would have!...

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