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

Found this REICO generator the other day. I know that REICO was operated by Norm Reisinger in Grafton, Ohio right around the corner from me. I had one of his boilers in the past and have seen a few examples of the engines he designed, but I’ve never seen any info on this generator. Anyone have some literature that shows this generator? Thanks!

Looks good. Never seen one like it.

that looks like a quality made generator Mike, I like the 3 windings, it probably has a bit steadier current flow than the Jensen 2 winding models I would imagine.

I’m sure this was built from a casting kit. The machine work is good, but the actual finish on the parts leaves a bit to be desired. The ceramic field magnets are very strong and only held in the frame by some kind of adhesive that was applied in a very sloppy fashion and is not holding well. I may have to re-attach the magnets properly at some point with some epoxy. The armature windings had black electrical tape wrapped around them too. It was pretty ugly before I cleaned it up! I plan on belting it up to my Jensen 50 to see what it can do. It came mounted on a board with four miniature light sockets all wired up. I think it will actually give the 50 a decent load.

OK, I found the catalog.


It is small. They offered very little. 1 sheet of paper printed on both sides, folded in half. Jeff Lehn has the catalog.
Basically 2 engines and a boiler. No generator in catalog #1.


Gil


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Thanks for the catalog photos, Gil! I know Mark Meinke acquired all that remained of REICO around 2011 and was looking into producing more engine casting sets, but I’m not sure if that ever got off the ground. He seems to have faded from the local antique engine community here in the last few years.

Thanks for the advice, Jan! The more I think about it, if I do end up re-doing the magnets, I may just forget about the gluing and take a more mechanical approach to securing the magnets.