Talk:Charlie Taylor (mechanic)

Contradiction in article
Some editing is needed to resolve the following contratiction. The article says, "He died penniless and alone in the hospital in 1956." The very next paragraph says, "Orville had also seen to it that Charlie received an annuity of money so that Charlie would live decently in his later years." Which is it? 199.46.199.232 (talk) 17:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I wondered about this too. Maybe the annuity stopped when Orville died in 1948?Corsair1944 (talk) 14:26, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I re-wrote this part of the article to better explain the circumstances. DonFB (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Add maintenance category
Per Categories for discussion/Log/2007 March 21, Category:Missing middle or first names has been added to this talk page. &mdash; DomBot / ChiDom  talk  09:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This statement needs a source citation: "When his plight was publicized, the aviation industry raised funds to move him to a private facility." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.109.66.145 (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

DID MR TAYLOR MACHINE THE ENGINE BLOCK
After Charlie Taylor's death, about 20 years, the rumor got around that Charlie didn't machine the engine block for the 03 wright flyer. The reason given for this thought was that the Wright Brothers only had three machines in there shop. A drill press, a band saw and a lathe. The lathe was a 14" putnum lathe. The way that they machined an engine block was to put it on the lathe carriage and bolt it down. They would put a bar between the head stock dead center and the tail stock dead center and turn the shaft with a dog or a clamp that would fit onto the chuck plate. The problem was the dead center was only 7" high and the engine block was about 8" high. This would leave the bar about 1" low. These dementions are aproxamate. In about 1964 The author Howard Dufore wrote a book about Mr Taylor. In doing his research he went to the bicycle shop in Dearborn and found a old nail container filled with scrap steel. Mr Dufore is a skilled machinist. He tipped over the container and saw the riser blocks for the lathe. These riser block have two v groves and two v ridges that stick up. They are a perfect match for the ways of the lathe. When He saw them he knew instantly what they were. He had a replaca of the engine block and set the head stock, the part were the chuck fits and rotates form, and the tail stock raised up on the riser blocks. With these modifications of the lathe the bar fit into the engine block and they could do what is called "line boring." I know this to be true because the curator at that time didn't let Mr Dufore leave the engine block on the lathe. I came along in 2002 along with Mr Jerry Brown and we set up the engine block on the lathe. We had to use the riser blocks to raise the head stock and tail stock high enough to line bore the block. Mr Dufore supplied the bar and gave us valuable advise on how to set it up. If you want to see one of the greatest museum see the Ford Museum in Dearborn Mi. The Wright shop is in a section called Greenfeild Village.


 * The story has always come down throughout the decades that the Wrights gave Taylor the plans of what they wanted and he built the engine out of aluminum block rather than steel to keep the unit as featherweight as possible. The Wrights also had the motor used on the wind tunnel but it's not known if it was used to power machine shop equipment. On CentennialofFlight website Taylor is said to have taken the block to a local foundry and had the crankcase cast there. With so much aluminum used in this engine, it was basically a bomb waiting to happen but luckily it never blew up, a testimony to the Wrights' design and Taylor's construction. Taylor built two more identical engines in 1904 with increased horsepower. One engine for the 1904 airplane and a practise engine used only in the Wright shop. The Wrights and Taylor were constantly trying to get more horsepower out the same engine which is why the practise engine was built. Koplimek (talk) 14:00, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

DID MR TAYLOR DESIGN AND BUILD THE ENGINE IN 6 WEEKS AS IN ARTICLE
To design let alone build you first engine in 6 weeks, clearly whoever wrote this didnt know what he was talking about. Likely they took an already built engine, pistons, injection, timing and all, and simply cast the crankcase - the heaviest part - out of aluminium alloy (it can not have been pure aluminium as anyone working with the metal knows its too soft) 13:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unveiled (talk • contribs)

External links modified
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