This afternoon I took a longer route home from a nearby hardware store.
It turned into a great experience.
As I drove up Winsted Road, to the north for a few miles in a much less populated area, still just 10 minutes from home (under 6 miles), I saw this large duplex steam pump just laying there on the outside of this fence in front of an industrial looking business.
I hit the brakes and turned around around to stop and take the below pictures.
I could not see enough through the fence and trees to learn the name of this place. I looked down the road and thought I saw a side street that would allow me to drive in next to the property. When I got there, no side street, just the entrance to the business, AVI International. I pulled in just far enough to turn around and leave when it was clear no one was there. As I began to pull out, a fellow in a pick-up truck pulled in and blocked my exit. He then pulled up next to me and asked if he could help me. By now it was quite clear he was protecting the property.
After I explained seeing his duplex steam pump out front, I was just looking for the name of the place so I could call or return another day to ask of they had any more steam hardware and that I am a big fan of all things steam and antique engine related. In that case, he says, park your truck and I'll show you some more stuff. I did not take any pictures inside the building because his partner and brother wasn't there to OK it. His brother has small collection of full sized steam engine governors. I got a tour of the place. They are rebuilding electric boiler feed pumps. Big ones. He showed me one ready to ship that had an internal sealed 700 HP motor direct driving a very large and stout impeller. I will have to get back there when they are both there and allow some photos. I saw his son's race car. This pump will be supplying make up water to the boilers at an electric company power plant.
Then he showed me the machine shops. First room were the lathes in various sizes that could turn a 4 foot long (smaller) piece up to a monster that had a 26" chuck, has a 51" swing and could turn a piece 16 feet long between centers. There were also a couple of huge vertical turret lathes. Then on to the equally impressive milling room. One had about a 36 inch rotary table and another mill had a 5' x 10' table that could move about 10 feet on both axis. Then it was on to the grinding area which had several of the largest surface grinders I have ever seen.
Here is a link to the machine shop description on their website:
https://avipumps.com/machine-shop.html Here are the few pictures I took outside.
Gil
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