Some of you may recall the post I made late last year about an old Kellogg air compressor my wife and I saw in an antique shop:

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/319476.html

To make a long story short...er, unbeknownst to me, my wife went back and bought it the next day. She surprised me with it for Christmas.

A couple months ago some of you surmised that it may have been re-purposed from a steam heating system, refrigerator or a soda fountain. It had a 30 psi gauge on it which lead us to believe it was a low pressure machine.

Fast forward a couple months. First off the electric motor didn't work. It was full of dirt, sawdust and other unidentifiable things. So I disassembled it, cleaned, lubricated and repaired some wiring in it. After that the motor ran great. I took apart the delicate porcelain switch (with a November 1895 patent date on it) and carefully cleaned it. The compressor, actually more properly called a "model 32 Kellogg air pump" was thoroughly cleaned, inspected and lubricated. The chain was removed and thoroughly cleaned and lubed as well. It was all put back together with a new grounded power cord. After this it ran beautifully. But it pegged the 30 PSI gauge in about 10 seconds. I soon realized it would easily pump up over 100 PSI in about 15 seconds, so I found an original 100 PSI gauge for it.






It has no tank to speak of, just the small accumulator tank you see on the front. I think this is for condensation. I have it set up in my garage, primarily for garage art. But I use it to blow off dust now and then. I do need to add a pressure relief valve to it, then I'll put a tire inflator on it and use it to keep my '24 touring car's tires at proper spec.

I just thought you guys might like to see it - thanks for looking.

Great!

If only I had room in my garage for displays...

Steve, Very Nice! Thanks for your post.

Excellent! One more thing I need to watch for at auctions.

Very nice!

I think McMaster Carr carries small over-pressure valves. I put one on an old compressor I got a few years ago. I think that is where I got it. It sure makes for a noisy son of a gun when that thing pops off on every upstroke of the piston.

Farm/fleet,TSC and others sell pop off valves.

Steve,

You are blessed with a very special wife to get you that for Christmas! Great job on cleaning it up and getting it going – but keeping the original look. While probably not authentic -- something to keep things from falling into the moving chain -- might save you some trouble later on down the road. Great piece of garage art!

Was the metal sign – “Full Service” on the unit when you purchased it or did you add that afterwards? That might help you date the unit.

Again – great Christmas present!

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off

Hap - thanks, yes my wife is a keeper. I thought about a belt guard of some type, it may have had one at one time, but I don't know. There are a couple extra holes on the motor case that seemed to have been used previously. But I can find no literature on it or photos of any others. I have to admit that I added the sign to it, just for fun.

Here's a better view of the chain drive before I started on it.



and after cleaning:

Looks great. Neat find.
Methinks that a pressure switch would be a very useful addition

I like the sign.

Very Cool ! Good job ! I love it when old stuff is brought back to life !