Prop blade ID help, please

special ed said:

A somewhat related off topic question, please. I have a pressure washer, brand name Karcher with umlot dots over the A. Could this be descended from the same company?

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Hi special ed,
Yes, it is the same brand name, just my simplistic typing to blame!
Of course, trade names etc can have been sold or inherited many times.

Eng

E Engineman

Thank you for the info (with documentation!) on the DB 601 intake manifold, and the main bearing cap. I will examine the bearing cap more closely to see if there are any edge markings, as you have suggested. If there are, I will photograph them for you.

Larry

Larrythepilot said:

OK Eng, here you go. I was out at the museum this afternoon, and took some pictures. There are 2 pictures of the DB-601 bearing cap, and the numbers are very clear.

View attachment 784199View attachment 784200 pictures of it. See what you make of it. ..... Thanks, Larry

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Hi Larry,
I am pleased the info about the inlet manifold is good for you!
So, back to this great main bearing cap. I already thought that it is a DB 601 E part, but my data was a little thin to be specific.
I do always try to be accurate, but you also have to apply caution to areas where info is slim, at the same time being open-minded!
I mentioned our forum member Steve Sheflin who I knew might have more info, and he has generously provided confirmation
that further proves the provenance of your artefact!
To re-cap (did you see what I did there!), this bearing-cap is the number 1 (front) cap from the DB 601 E , Werk-Nr 14366, build date 6/1942.
Because 6/42 was a time where the DB 601 E was being replaced on production by the new DB 605 A, and this item is partly common,
there was a question about the engine type. Well, Steve has given us confirmation that is cast-iron! Steve has provided a photo of the Daimler-Benz
Typenschild of the engine just 13 after yours, so these will have been on the production-line together!
As with many mass-produced items, these engines were produced and documented in batches, so particular manufacturers or factories would
build a block of products with consecutive serial numbers.
Steve's Typenschild photo shows engine 14379 , just after your 14366! This is a very close serial number. Furthermore, as you will see, there
is much more detail.
Steves photo shows that this engine is a DB 601 E-1, Werk-Nr 14366 and the works (Hersteller) is DB A.-G. Werk 90 Berlin-Marienfelde.
This is an exceptional piece of provenance for your item. You can be assured that your engine will have had the same makers plate.
Beyond that, the aircraft will have been a Bf 109 F-4, as we previously thought.
So many thanks to Steve Sheflin and his fantastic information!
Here is his photo!

Eng

Engineman said:

Hi again Larry,

So, this main bearing cap is from a DB 601 E/F or a DB 605. A little strangely, the alloy block of this part remained the same but the attached main bearing shell did change
between the two engine types. You should find cast into the alloy block, either front or back the part number 9-601.104-065 or possibly ending instead; -065.12 or -065.92
or -065.8 or -065.9 as these are oversizes. There could be other numbers and I would be interested to see the cast-in numbers.
So thanks for the pictures, what can we see? This is stamped "1" which is the front bearing cap and it has the extra cast arch on the front face that closes over the large roller bearing for the reduction gear Pinion rear bearing track. Next, the 6/1942 is what it appears to be, the date of engine assembly/build. Finally, there is the clear number "14366" which is the
Werk-Nr ie the engine serial number. These details are a little tricky. On that date, the build of DB 601 E/F engine had almost finished and some 2,500 or so DB 605's had been built.
I have a cross-reference on a DB 610 E engine 14259 from a Bf 109 F-4 and that would look likely to show 14366 could be just 107 engines later.
However, this detail is thin on further data.
So, the bottom line is that this could be from either a late D 601 E/F, or an early DB 605 A, only a very detailed study of the bearing shell could confirm. Or, possibly more data
from someone like Steve Sheflin on this forum who has a large database.

Eng

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Hi Larry,
I just thought I would add the parts list pics for the DB 601 E/F main bearing cap.
The cap is item 10 on the LHS of the illustration at the front of the engine and the same 10 on the listing.
Eng

OK Engineman, you are of course correct. There are additional markings on the main bearing cap that I was not able to see in the relatively poor light at the museum. I brought it home for closer examination. I found 4 more separate markings. 2 of them are on the curved edge of the bearing material (as you suggested), and 2 are on the cap casting itself. On the casting, one of them looks like an inspector's stamp (circle with a number inside), and the other is maybe a casting number. The 2 marks on the bearing material appear to be scratched in with an awl; not a stamp. I did some crude macro photography. There are a couple of views of each mark, and one of the setup I used to get the pictures. I hope all this helps. My apologies to the others looking at this thread; that's an awful lot of pictures.

Larrythepilot said:

My apologies to the others looking at this thread; that's an awful lot of pictures.

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It's what we come here for.

Larrythepilot said:

OK Engineman, you are of course correct. There are additional markings on the main bearing cap that I was not able to see in the relatively poor light at the museum. I brought it home for closer examination. I found 4 more separate markings. 2 of them are on the curved edge of the bearing material (as you suggested), and 2 are on the cap casting itself. On the casting, one of them looks like an inspector's stamp (circle with a number inside), and the other is maybe a casting number. The 2 marks on the bearing material appear to be scratched in with an awl; not a stamp. I did some crude macro photography. There are a couple of views of each mark, and one of the setup I used to get the pictures. I hope all this helps. My apologies to the others looking at this thread; that's an awful lot of pictures.
View attachment 785547View attachment 785548View attachment 785549View attachment 785550View attachment 785551View attachment 785552View attachment 785553View attachment 785554View attachment 785554

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Great work Larry! Thank you for your efforts and I hope that my information is useful.
So, the marks I can see are nicely pictured. The markings are in three different forms, the cast-in, the stamped and the hand written in vibro-pen.

The first is cast-in ; 065.12, with VDM triangle and 3115.4 . The 065.12 is the part number. On later engines, this is the full number and is much better defined.
The VDM in triangle trademark shows these were made by that specialist company and these are pressure die cast parts.
The 3115.4 is the material specification.

Next, vibro-pen engravings on the bearing shell. G 6/1942K(or R). The 6/1942 ties in with the date on the main cap. The letters may indicate overhaul and
reworking of the bearing, which was common.
The next number 14366 is the engine serial number, which is marked in a different hand.

Finally, 619 in a circle is an inspection stamp.

Overall, a nice original main bearing cap. I wish that I had one myself! I think that you have a fair amount of info on this now, the DB601 E engine built in 6/42
at Marienfelde. It is possible that the inlet manifold came from that engine. Also, the top crankcase lid that lies on the table is possible to identify if you
would like to try? Just ask!

I attach a pic of the fit and finish drawing of this main bearing cap for you.

Cheers

Eng

SaparotRob said:

It's what we come here for.

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Thanks, Rob. Makes me feel good. But I was thinking that extreme close-ups of scratchy numbers aren't very exciting (except for Engineman).

Larrythepilot said:

Thanks, Rob. Makes me feel good. But I was thinking that extreme close-ups of scratchy numbers aren't very exciting (except for Engineman).

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Engineman said:

Great work Larry! Thank you for your efforts and I hope that my information is useful.
So, the marks I can see are nicely pictured. The markings are in three different forms, the cast-in, the stamped and the hand written in vibro-pen.

The first is cast-in ; 065.12, with VDM triangle and 3115.4 . The 065.12 is the part number. On later engines, this is the full number and is much better defined.
The VDM in triangle trademark shows these were made by that specialist company and these are pressure die cast parts.
The 3115.4 is the material specification.

Next, vibro-pen engravings on the bearing shell. G 6/1942K(or R). The 6/1942 ties in with the date on the main cap. The letters may indicate overhaul and
reworking of the bearing, which was common.
The next number 14366 is the engine serial number, which is marked in a different hand.

Finally, 619 in a circle is an inspection stamp.

Overall, a nice original main bearing cap. I wish that I had one myself! I think that you have a fair amount of info on this now, the DB601 E engine built in 6/42
at Marienfelde. It is possible that the inlet manifold came from that engine. Also, the top crankcase lid that lies on the table is possible to identify if you
would like to try? Just ask!

I attach a pic of the fit and finish drawing of this main bearing cap for you.

Cheers

Eng
View attachment 785569

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Yes, I think you have provided enough info about the main bearing cap. Thank you. It was a challenge to find all the markings, clean them enough to make them visible, but not damage them. I appreciate your encouragement to look more closely. Maybe one of these days I'll learn to not be in so much of a hurry.

I'm just learning to use a camera that used to be my wife's. My digital camera no longer works properly, so I took over Pat's, which is newer than mine, and never used very much. She does everything with an iPad now.

Our near-term goal with the DB-601 engine is to design and build a stand that will hold the cylinder bank in the proper orientation, instead of upside-down on a table. One of our other people is actively working on the design. Once the design is complete, and we have a dimensioned sketch, I can probably get it built for free. We have a couple of metal fabricators who build things for us at no charge, provided we are willing to wait for them to do it in between paying work. Once we get the cylinder bank in the proper orientation, then we can see what else we might be able to attach to that core piece.

Larry

Larrythepilot said:

Yes, I think you have provided enough info about the main bearing cap. Thank you. It was a challenge to find all the markings, clean them enough to make them visible, but not damage them. I appreciate your encouragement to look more closely. Maybe one of these days I'll learn to not be in so much of a hurry.

I'm just learning to use a camera that used to be my wife's. My digital camera no longer works properly, so I took over Pat's, which is newer than mine, and never used very much. She does everything with an iPad now.

Our near-term goal with the DB-601 engine is to design and build a stand that will hold the cylinder bank in the proper orientation, instead of upside-down on a table. One of our other people is actively working on the design. Once the design is complete, and we have a dimensioned sketch, I can probably get it built for free. We have a couple of metal fabricators who build things for us at no charge, provided we are willing to wait for them to do it in between paying work. Once we get the cylinder bank in the proper orientation, then we can see what else we might be able to attach to that core piece.

Larry

Click to expand...

Thanks for that info Larry. Yes, displaying the DB parts is tricky to do well. I was involved with a static display DB 605 a while ago that was lacking the magnesium castings (particularly
the rear gear casing and front reduction gear case), so we constructed a steel skeleton to hold the gears and shafts etc in place. However, we did have a full engine apart from those gear cases, so it was quite good.
I am interested how many items there might be from the excavations? There could be a lot, if they were burying rather than selling as scrap? It would seem strange if they were burying some but, they also disposed parts as scrap, why bother burying?

Eng

To the best of my knowledge, they were burying; not selling for scrap. They did weird things after the war. For example, there were a lot of hand tools, like wrenches. They paid people to use a torch and cut them in half, and the bury them. Why not just give them away? Makes no sense. The parts from the disassembled Axis aircraft were considered to be junk. They were finished evaluating the stuff, and the base was closing. The easiest way to dispose of it was to bury it, so they did. The whole airplanes went to Wright-Patterson, some to NASM, and still others to museums around the country. The airplanes that were here had an FE ("Freeman Evaluation") number painted on the tail. Any airplane you see in a museum with FE on the tail was here. There were about 160 airplanes in total. Of course, some museums repainted the planes they received, and the FE numbers have been obliterated.

Starting in the early 1990s, there have been 3 groups that have obtained permission from the Freeman Municipal Airport Authority to look for buried airplanes. It was originally thought that there were 14 whole planes buried here, and that's what people were really looking for. The last group, the Freeman Field Recovery Team, did more research, and determined that those airplanes aren't here. After that, people got sick of finding miscellaneous loose parts, and quit hunting. There are almost assuredly more parts to be found, but they are likely to be more of the same; loose cylinders, landing gear legs, and other engine parts.

So that's the short version of the Freeman Field story.

Thanks for the information Larry. It is certainly fortunate that many of the aircraft were not just scrapped. I believe that underground radar and similar techniques are pretty good
these days, so good luck if you can locate more items. In Europe, there is generally less space and more concentrated population and industry, so post WW2 most war materiel was
scrapped. However, there was just so much of it that in places, some was dumped, often on the fringes of airfields. Also, a huge amount of aircraft had buried themselves when they crashed. Sometimes, parts from crashes can be very good condition. There is a Merlin engine from a crashed Halifax aircraft that actually disintegrated in flight as it was shot down and fell in a peat bog in Germany, that is being restored for ground running display. You can see it on the Youtube site "Historic Aero Engines".
Cheers

Eng