FM Eclipse found today. Model? Worth getting?

[DennisT]

AT, you're doing a beautiful job on that.
NEWS here..........it's all home! Seller was available this afternoon and offered the help of a younger guy that was visiting him. Snow or not, off I went. That young fellow loaded EVERYTHING. Even hefted the mill head onto my tailgate by himself so we could slide it in. Nothing left there now that i know of. Which means: I am officially missing the tailbone and 2 of the 6 fan struts. Paint color now showing and it looks to be the same color to me that I've seen so many times on F-M hopper cooled gas engines - something like a dark forest green.
To work toward confirming the size of my new windmill, I can now offer this: the blades are each 30 1/4" long. The pin attaching the tailbone is looking for something 7 1/8" between it's cast ears. Not our suspected 10+ inches.
Does any of this suggest more comments about the size of this mill?

[mtblah]

always exciting to get a new windmill home and start discovering new things !

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

I think it's a 8ft mill now I see it in the back of your truck. Are there any part numbers on the gear box?

[CTXmiller]

When you said the young man loaded it all by himself, I too got to thinking 8’ as most any 10’ gearbox is a 2-man job…and some 8’ models are a 2-man job to load a gearbox. However, four blade sections are typically seen on more 10’ mills than 8’ in my experience, so that is why I was thinking 10’.

Might just lay the wheel out and measure.

[DennisT]

So far I can find no markings on the head at all. However, there is at least one side I've not yet been able to see. I too am tending toward 8'. And with bare fan blades only measuring 30 1/4 inches long I think that is pretty short.

I'm slowly finding a little more about it's history. Will update that. Meanwhile, I broke the rusty wires on the one shorter ironwork tower pack. (Four pieces maybe 4 feet long, each flared at one end.) Angle is 2 1/2". Separated the twin sets of 2 pieces, and......."well, 'lookeee there," I said to myself. Pic attached. I think no doubt can now remain that this is, indeed, a brand new tower package. "if," all is there.

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

I do believe that is a new old stock tower"Awesome". The only other one I've seen is the one that was with the Corcoran Mill find in western NY. Great find !!

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

Dennis i was looking at the photos of your mill and I believe that might be new old stock also I noticed some parts wired to it. I think once you pressure wash it and take some PB blaster to the moving parts,gears, pitman arms where they hook on gears and yoke. Also where the yoke slides up and down on guide rods do this on and off for a couple days.That little bit of surface rust can cause the hub not to turn it did on my new old stock challenge 27. Also unhook the pump rod from the yoke.Once you get that all cleaned up and working than worry about putting the tower together once you lay out all the parts and post pics I'm sure we can help you with the tower.

[DennisT]

Thank you. You may or may not have noticed my several page recent posts about my Samson S head I retrieved from my friends dirt field. Where it had laid since 1989. I had to work my way through learning that a little at a time. It now turns easily and quietly, but will need a new shaft. Hub still refuses to yield. And I have no tail, vane or fan at all for it. I'll keep at that one slowly, bur refocus now on this nearly complete Fairbanks. Makes far more sense.
Now if I can just find some documentation and/or close up photos for how the Fairbanks goes together to prevent me from making a wrong move.

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

Sometimes if you get yourself a chair and a beer and just study things you can figure it out it works for me.Well sometimes it takes a couple beers !!

[Jim Corcoran]

Dan,
It's amazing how many problems beer can overcome!