Hi all i recently picked this item up , being a compressed air bottle , its owner believed it was used for air starting aircraft engines.
As can be seen in pics it has a manufacture date of 1911 and test dates in 1936 and 39 , it is approx. 19 inches long with a diameter of 14 inches . Made by continental .
Any ideas , it may not even be aircraft related .
cheers dave
By: Rigga - 11th January 2011 at 19:40
“Inhb” short for “Inhalt” or “Inhabe” (German) which means Contents or Contains. Can’t see it on your pic’s but I’d guess there was a pressure there somewhere.
“Prob” (date) is again German for “Probieren/Probiert” meaning testing/tested – So you have the original Test Date.
Looks like you have a fully dual-language Gas Bottle marked in English and German. It looks like the original marks were the English as they seem to be in the “right” place
…could’ve been used for anything.
By: Creaking Door - 11th January 2011 at 15:57
I cannot read the lower text by the ‘150 Atm’ stamp but the upper text by the ‘225 Atm’ stamp states ‘Prob.’ which looks like the original German to me.
Notice also the stamp ‘Leer Gew. 7’, well, I think the German for empty is ‘Leer’, and the German for weight is ‘Gewicht’, and seven kilograms is about fifteen and a half pounds. Pretty close to the tare weight of 15lb 1oz.
My conjecture is that this cylinder, manufactured in Germany, was exported to Australia at some stage and had the English units stamped on it because of the unfamiliarity with the German metric units.
I don’t see anything on it that indicates it has anything to do with aircraft but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t used to start an aircraft engine, however how many aircraft engines that required air-starting in 1911 would still have been in service in 1939? Of course there is nothing to say that this cylinder continued to be used for the purpose for which it was designed.
The name ‘Continental’, a well known German tyre manufacturer, stamped so prominently on a compressed air cylinder also suggests to me that it could be something to do with tyres (even aircraft tyres, remote on an airfield away from a compressor).
As I said, all this is conjecture on my part and I’m happy to be proved wrong. 🙂
By: ozjag - 11th January 2011 at 03:48
Atmospheres is not a common unit of measure in Australia, not sure about other English speaking countries though, PSI or Bar is much more prevalent. Atm is common in mainland Europe.
By: Scott Marlee - 11th January 2011 at 02:33
not a really old fire extinguisher is it?
By: Creaking Door - 11th January 2011 at 01:38
Nothing to say that the ‘English’ units were not stamped on later in the country (Australia?) where the bottle was being used (and probably tested).
There seem to be stamps for proof and operating pressures too ‘Atm’ (atmospheres), fairly international units, and pretty high too (150 atmospheres is about 2000 psi).
By: Bager1968 - 11th January 2011 at 01:09
Tempting to think that ‘LUFT’ has something to do with aircraft but isn’t ‘COMPR. LUFT’ more likely to be an abbreviation for compressed air in German?:diablo:
Except that the rest is in English, and uses english units (“tare weight 15 lbs 1 oz”, etc), while Germany was using the metric system.
By: Creaking Door - 11th January 2011 at 00:51
Tempting to think that ‘LUFT’ has something to do with aircraft but isn’t ‘COMPR. LUFT’ more likely to be an abbreviation for compressed air in German?
Continental Tyres were certainly in existence during 1939-1945 as I’ve seen Continental tyres on a Panzer mark III…
…German engineering where you need it most on a tank! :diablo:
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January 11, 2011 at 12:32 am