Moseley Generator Drawings

[Steam Engine Dan]

Hello Everyone, I have a question for everybody. I am looking to find drawings/prints for a 1.5 scale Moseley Turbo Generator. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

Daniel

[Cary Stewart]

I doubt very much that there is available a set of drawings for Moseley's Generator. That was a very proprietary item. No drawings of the internals were ever published. The design either went to his heirs or to his company. Cary

[Cary Stewart]

Some of the interesting things about Moseley's generator was the cost of developing it. It never paid for itself. Francis did it as a challenge. He had to invent a CNC mill and drill press in the process. Back in the late 60s or early 70s he took them to the WESTEC machinery show in Los Angeles for show and tell. Levin made some of the best lathes in the world and Moseley made the best mill. His design used a tapered helix turbine wheel to drive a tiny alternator. I have one of the first production run which I paid for about two years before the first one was demonstrated. Some the guys at LALS bought several of them. There were attempts to copy his but none were particularly successful. I tried to convince him to make a older version (model K I think) with the large diameter turbine housing from the early 20th century for use on older locos. He thought about it but declined
Cary

[Harlock]

You would have to reverse engineer it, and that itself would be quite a challenge. I recently had an opportunity to go through Francis' files and did not find any information on the generator. Not sure what became of any printed material related to that product. He was very meticulous and saved a lot of paperwork and letters, but the MO-6 files must have gone elsewhere. Even if we were able to find the paperwork, it's not likely that there would be user-friendly and complete drawings. There were jigs and specialty processes used to make some of the parts, and some off the shelf components are probably no longer available.

Ken Schroeder has through trial and error come up with a very good generator in 3 3/4" scale, and it's possible that the concept could be scaled back down. The key to successful operation is in the shape of the blades on the turbine.

On a related note, the original MO-6 Francis used to reference his model is being restored to operation after being a driveway ornament for many decades. The windings and other internals were in surprisingly good shape. When it is up and running I'll post some more info about where it is at.

-Mike

[LivingLegend]

Barry Hauge bought the molds, tooling, and engineering data/drawings from the Moseley family to manufacture the Pyle-National MO6 generator and headlights (both the 1.5" and 1"scale versions). That was back in the late 80s as I recall. I was at Barry's shop one day and we discussed his plans for the generator. Barry's intent was to market an operable 1.5" generator but after performing a manufacturing cost analysis, Barry told me that he felt in order to make any money of the generator, the selling price would so high that the number of those who would be interested and number of sales would be limited. Due to that fact, Barry decided his producing the Moseley generator wasn't worth the effort required. There was a lot of expense in just the armature alone. Remember, Francis made the generators as a labor of love and barely made money off the sale of his generator, if he did at all on some runs. Barry did offer the generator for sale as a one piece dummy which could not be turned into one what worked. Barry only offered a working Moseley 1.5" headlight for sale and that, as I remember, was as an unfinished kit.

After a few years of ownership, Barry sold the molds/tooling for the Moseley generators and headlights to Riding Rail Kits along with the molds for the SuperScale 1.6" scale bell (which I made the patterns for.... was for Barry''s 1.6" Mikado project) who did sell the both the headlight and the Mikado bell for a while. Both the generator and headlight have been in the possession of a new owner for a number of years who has, or at least had, the intent of bringing a working Moseley generator back onto the market. I haven't spoken to that owner since shortly after he obtained the molds/tooling, so I can only assume he hasn't sold them to someone else.

LL

EDITED 04/30/2017 @ 0955 CDT.... (Added additional and clarified info)

[Gary Armitstead]

Daniel,

I purchased my Moseley MO-6 generator new in early 1981. Bought it personally from Francis after talking with him on the phone. We spent an hour on the phone as he explained how he machined his little jewel.
Generator, regulator and conduit for the wiring and very simple instructions on a small sheet of paper about setting up and running the generator. A grand total of $220 shipped to me in Burbank (Francis lived in Flintridge, CA about 5 miles from me). Mine is still in the box, never run. You can't touch a Moseley generator now for under $2500! It truly was a "work of love", not a profit-making venture.

[LivingLegend]

....I purchased my Moseley MO-6 generator new in early 1981.... A grand total of $220 shipped to me....

If remember correctly, Francis sold the 1.5" generators from it's first production run (1970s) for around $160.

..... Them was the good ol' days!

LL

[Gary Armitstead]

....I purchased my Moseley MO-6 generator new in early 1981.... A grand total of $220 shipped to me....

If remember correctly, Francis sold the 1.5" generators from it's first production run (1970s) for around $160.

..... Them was the good ol' days!

LL

Ain't that the truth!

[LivingLegend]

....Barry did offer the generator for sale as a one piece dummy which could not be turned into one what worked

After further thought, I realized I am wrong on this....

Barry told me he did NOT want to offer the castings so a builder could assemble the generator as a dummy.

LL

[JKreider]

I have the files on the Moseley generators. I'll have to look through them and see what is there.
I know there is a lot of customer correspondence, part purchase invoices, production counts, etc.
I'll look for design sketches or drawings and see if there are any.

Jim Kreider

[Steam Engine Dan]

thanks everyone, much appreciated.

[Howard Gorin]

I bought the Moseley Headlight, generator and bell tooling from Rod Johnson. Unfortunately some of the fixturing and other tooling was not found.
I assume Rod Johnson got everything from Barry, but I cannot prove it.
I have been producing the model Pyle-National headlight kit. Attempting to make consistent casting for the generator was remarkably unsuccessful, rejection rates on the four major castings which come from rubber molds was too high. One way or another I wind up paying for the castings, good or bad. I am trying to get hard tools to make the four major body castings. I have a very fine tool to make the detail parts. If The four body tools are made then I have some ideas for the internals. To the best of my knowledge any Moesley documentation that Jim has came from me