Hunter Fan

Will Bolton is an aeronautical engineer in Livermore, California. He wrote and sent this post last week.

Under normal summer conditions, when the high temperature during the day gets up to about 95 F or so in Livermore, we usually don't need to turn on the airconditioner. The key is opening up the house in the evening when the outside temperature usually gets down to the low 60s or the high 50s. In the evenings, we open up the house and turn on a fan that I set on the floor in front of the back deck screen door. This story is really about the fan. I brought it back from my folk's house in Denver when I was getting ready to sell the house after my parents passed away. The fan is a 12" oscillating desk made by the Hunter Fan and Ventilator Company, Fulton, New York, founded in 1886. My first solid memory of this fan was in about 1949 when my folks and I were living in a rented trailer in Raytown, Missouri, between World War II and Korea. 

In recent weeks, the fan has been making a rattling noise when it was on high speed. This afternoon, I had some time so I decided to try to figure out what was causing the noise. I guessed that a motor bushing was wearing causing the fan shaft to wobble. I got out my tools and started taking things apart. The first amazing thing I found was that it was possible to take it apart. It was assembled using threaded fasteners into metal parts, not heat welded plastic parts designed with the "disassemble by destroying" philosophy. The fan is surprisingly heavy and that is because it is made of substantial materials. The whole fan is made of metal. The only plastic I could find were some small electrical insulators and the rotary on/off speed selection switch handle.

As I got deeper into the fan, I was amazed by what I was finding. The motor is an old-school laminated  silicon steel frame style. The fan runs in bronze bushings lubricated by a oil wick system fed from a reservoir and refilled by an external fitting. The oscillating system is operated by a small transmission with nicely made steel worm gears and a clever mechanism to lock the fan in a single position or to allow it to oscillate. The transmission is in a die cast aluminum case packed with grease and with packing seals on the various shafts entering the case. The rotary motion of the transmission is converted into oscillating motion of the fan by a lever that attaches to a rotating wheel by a screw. The screw has a polished shoulder that a bronze bushing the in the lever rides in and the screw even has a left hand thread so it won't loosen by the rotation of the wheel. This fan is literally made to last forever with reasonable maintenance. In fact, I couldn't find any reason for the rattling noise I was hearing.

A little superficial research showed that the Hunter company suspended making consumer products during World War II. In 1946, they moved from Fulton, New York, to Memphis, Tennessee, where they are still located. The data plate on the fan shows that the fan was made in Fulton, suggesting that - since my folks were married in 1944 - it was probably made in 1946 - making it at least 62 years old as I write this. As I was working on the fan, two questions occurred to me: 

Is it possible to buy a fan this well made today - at any price? 

Why did the Hunter company make a fan this good 62 years ago? 

While I was pondering these questions, I started cleaning up parts, removing the 60 year old grease from the transmission and repacking it with new grease, refilling the oil reservoir, and getting out my can of Meguire's paste car wax to polish the beautiful metal fan blades. That was when I discovered that the set screw in the fan hub, that fits into a flat ground into the motor shaft, was loose. So after being plugged in, turned on, and ignored for 62 years the only thing wrong with the fan was a loose set screw - which took about 5 seconds to tighten. 

We bought a new washing machine last weekend. Our first washing machine was a Kenmore that my folks bought new, used for about 15 years, and gave to my wife Joan and I when I was in graduate school. We used it for about another 15 years before we had to replace it - 30 years of service. The next machine was another Kenmore and it lasted for a total of about 15 years. When we went to the store last weekend to look at washing machines, the salesman told us that they last about six to eight years now. Our experience is that each generation of washing machine costs more and lasts half as long. Some sort of inverse Moore's Law value proposition. 

So, I don't know the answer to my first question. However, my answer for the second question is that the Hunter Fan and Ventilator Company made a high quality fan 62 years ago because it was going to be good for my soul today.