Hope with @k_vanlooken’s help it is now possible for everybody to download the book. Thanks so much Koen for sharing and dividing it into smaller bits!
Well, flat head engines were very commons those days. They wrote that a more compact and less rugged cylinder head is better. This is often better achieved with OHV, but can’t generalized. It is more depending on the actual design of the engine (valves, inlet and exhaust) than on OHV or flathead
Also, it is with some flat head designs not easy to increase the compression ratio.
Remember, this is technical state of the 40s.
In the USA, The early “Hot Rodders” would increase the compression of a flat-head engine by shaving off some metal of the entire head gasket surface on a milling machine. Hence the nickname “Milled Heads”. This would of course make the combustion chamber smaller in each cylinder raising the compression. You can do that to an old Briggs and Stratton engine as well. Never done it myself, and sealing and valve clearance can be issues.
i also uploaded different chapters so it could make more sense if someone is searching for a specific topic:
descriptions of gasifier types, includes blowers for starting and nozzles for charcoal gasifiers
cleaning filters ( gas cleaning technics )
Gas mixing ( some nice info and schematics )
Wood gasification
Charcoal gasification
engine behavior on woodgas
engine modification to improve power
If a specific question arise, please give me the page number from the original document, either bottom left or bottom right, then i will do my best to answer
some nice example from those old day’s experiences:
consumption and fuel comparing…
rule of thumb numbers ( remember, those numbers come from 1944 )
1 liter gasoline = 2,5 kg wood
1 liter gasoline = 1,25 kg charcoal
1 liter diesel = 5 kg wood
1 hp = 0,8 to 1 kg wood
1 hp = 0,4 to 0,5 kg charcoal
Holz = wood
Holzkohle = charcoal
Personenwagen = normal car
Lastwagen = truck
Fahrzeuggewicht = curb weight in kg
Treibstofverbrauch = fuel consumption in kg per 100 km
if statement = 100 t/km, it means consumption per 100 km per ton vehicle weight
i love it if someone can point out my errors…
my errors are not seldom… but people capable to point them out to me are ( i think that one comes from Einstein… )
Hello Pete,
don’t get it wrong. It doesn’t mean the physically correct formula!
It is a rule of thump for the specific wood or charcoal consumption. So for an engine output of 1 horse-power for one our, you can estimate a consumption of 0.8 to 1 kg wood or 0.4 to 0.5 kg charcoal.
I cannot read any German but very often I can puzzle through topic words and short descriptions if they are in context. I was surprised how many of the diagrams don’t really need labeling to be of use. Very good diagrams covering air styles, nozzles, lids and other configurations. My one concern is that the author might have included a drawing of what not to do with a stern warning in German. I will add my thanks to the others for the availability of another resource.
As far as I overlooked it, there is more a discussion about proven or current designs. Of course with pros and cons.
No bad examples what not to do.
If you have a question about a drawing in particular, just give the page number and I can give some details and translate the legend.
Hello Til,
Thank you for uploading the book. It is excellent. Sadly - my German is not, I did note that on page 378 App. 105 is a nice cross section view of the principal we have used to convert the low speed Lister type diesel engines with a pre-combustion chamber to dual fuel - diesel and spark ignition.
Best regards,
Ron Ohler
hello tilman, thanks for the swiss book … there is a lot of information and a wide overview from the gasifiers used in the thirties and fourties, also from converting diesels to woodgas…and so many other things- swiss perfection collected knowledge…
also i am a fan from historic documents to gasifying. my gandfather used one on his bus -omnibus in this times , 20 years before i was born but, unfortunately no foto exists in the family . vielen herzlichen dank
giorgio
Hello Giorgio,
pleasure to help and to share knowledge. I try to collect old documents about woodgas, but this book is really the best overview of the past I have ever found. You named it: Swiss perfection
Thank you for your threads about your own builds. I like them a lot. Hopefully I can start my own project soon, but in the moment rebuilding an old house take all my attention an spare time.
Regards,
Til
Very unfortunate for me, I tried Opera, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Firefox and all of them give the same Invalid URL message once the page loads. Not sure why it won’t work.
Cody, have you tries Koen’s PDF breakdown on Google Drive? Works for me.
Quote: Koen Van Looken
(Jan 2018)
“I made a split for the book, per 50 pages, for those who have difficulties to download the whole file at once. It also makes it more easy for me to translate it with Google apps”
