Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

The next engine that I built was the Essex hot air fan. The patterns were made by Norbert Keeley, who had bought a real Essex fan at a hardware store that was going out of business. He bought "a fan with no cord" for $5. When Norbert died, his engine patterns went to Myers Model Engine Works, where they are still dole today. It is a very nice running fan engine, with a very strange motion. Henry Essex designed his engines very differently then other hot sir engines. They were very efficient engines. The Essex fans never had a blade cage. They were sold as kitchen fans in about 1910.