This 1920s growler can detect short circuits in the armatures of electric motors. More unique tools and restorations on my channel and website. #antique #restoration #diy #electricmotors #vintage #tools
My guess is that the machine is inducing a magnetic field in the armature and if the wiring is shorted somewhere you will get ... a phase shift between between the magnets that are are shorted which makes the hack saw blade to dance... I started out good, but my logic broke down midsentence. I'll go and watch the video.
I used one of those back in the day. My boss was a WW2 Veteran and he trained me on all the beautiful equipment he owned. I used this when checking , rebuilding starters, generators. He also had the machine to cut the grooves between the contacts perfectly every time. I also used to grind valves on his very old valve grinding machine. It ground valve seats also when doing a valve job. I those days we rebuilt stuff. Nowadays people just replace. Thanks for the trip back to my glory days in my 20's!!
Me to, in 1981 when I was in high school I got a job at a garage that summer where I started out cleaning and painting the place and by the end of the summer they had me pulling head's off of V8's and grinding the valve's on a Kwick Way valve grinding machine and grinding seats with the Kwick Way set, the older guy who owned the place his dad had originally opened it in the 20's and he'd worked there since he was a kid in the 30's before he went off to WW2, he taught me how to use their growler because they still rebuilt starters and generators that were on some of the 60's cars that were still around at that point, when I graduated from high school in 83 I went off to the Army and came back in 86, by then he'd retired and his son took it over and quit messing with rebuilding starters and that kind of stuff and just exchanged them for reman's at NAPA. In 2001 I opened a motorcycle shop and went down there and ask his son if all that valve and seat grinding equipment was still there, after I left they'd quit doing that kind of work and had packed it up and had it on top of the office, he sold all the valve and seat grinding equipment for $250, that was a nice score.
@@dukecraig2402 Awesome!!! Same era for me too. I worked fixing cars my entire life. I should have gone to college ?! I was 20 in 79. Where I worked in Mass we had an antique Coke machine that still worked perfectly. And an old dog sitting in the office. Man miss those days!!
It's called an undercutting saw. Many different width saw blades, for different widths of mica. Turning and undercutting, were standard procedures for armatures. Even stoning, to seat the brushes. New brushes, take on the shape of the commutator, after touching the stone, instead of a single line of contact. We had rollers for static balancing, then we dynamic balanced afterwards. Back in the eighties.
@@dadsvespaI’m teaching my daughter find something you love (like a car truck) and fix it fix it fix it better with the problems you know and can be ready or get caught out buying new problems
I hope nothing is lost to time. For example, they can't figure out how to reverse engineer first generation Polaroid cartridge stock, so if they don't get it right soon, one high quality variety of Polaroids that we WERE capable of producing in the 1960s may become unknown to us. Certain aerospace insulating gels became unknown for 30 years, and it's a fine fading line that links us to the "once-were innovations" . We real should conduct a history project to record every specialty scientist, engineer, technician, artisan and trades and craftsman of dying industries, and people who knew our old cultural practices. Our fathers and mothers knew a thing or two. We'll lose it if we don't save it. Could be an industrial chemical process, or a certain type of woven fabric (like sea silk) or just the words to a song or the rules of a game....
Electric motors are simply got way more affordable, the 1-3 HP range of your average small appliance just doesnt make sense to repair. We still rewind the multiple hundred horsepower big boys.
On a side note (talking about what was…) Do you remember the Lindbergh line of plastic ship and airplane models? Many of the kits came with a small plastic bag of electric motor parts, that when assembled allowed propellers to spin. Very educational and inexpensive (back then) STEM education before STEM was a thing!
Shit they stopped offering them 30 years ago where I grew up. Instead our entire county had a "vocational school" offering where the kids got bussed a county over. And the "vocational" options were laughable. It really seemed like a, "needs a 'diploma' but not quite bad enough to be relegated to the alternative school"-school
@@ObservationofLimits Public schools need more support not less from our state & federal government. I learned so many things from my dad and others, but I know so many other guys only learned that stuff from shop classes at school.
nobody repairs these anymore. Alternator not working? toss it and replace. Same for electric motors unless they're large and expensive then they get sent off to specialists.
My dad was an unlicensed electrician, who could run rings around licensed guys back in the day. He worked in the shop. head of maintenance department 40 years. Did everything, electrical, machine, tool, repair, carpentry, hydraulics, you name it. And with excellence. He always used to talk about putting an armature on a growler. As a kid, I never understood what he was talking about, although I did grasp it was something used to test bad motors. It’s so hilarious now to realize the friggin thing is exactly what it was called! Very cool. Well you just closed the chapter on a lifelong internal question I never had an answer to! 😆
Yep, I see how this works and it would absolutely tell you which coil is burned up. It's simply reversing/inducing a magnetic field into the rotor and the ring on the commutator is just completing the circuit. Whoever built it... Cheers to you.
Brings back memories of my summer job when in college. i used one of those to test armatures. Most of the time the problem could be cleared, but some had to go back for rebuilding again. The problem was usually a copper shaving from when the commutator was turned, or a sloppy setting of a lead.
Are these only for DC ( commutated) motors. Could they be used on brushless stator winding. Do windings fail that often these days? Is it cheaper to replace an armature than repair?
These are only for AC/DC Brushed motors, hence why it has a comm on the end. It's very rare for us to see windings fail at my job, much more common for the point of failure to be the connection between the winding and the comm. The cost really depends on the type of repair. Repairing or replacing a comm is easy, if the winding is fucked you're better off scrapping it for a freshy, ESSPECIALLY if its been varnished@@twickersruss
Dude. Never seen one of those in my life. I love it man. Some of the old tools are built so well and made to last forever. Hence the fact that you have one that's that old! Sick man! Keep it up!
My mother was a cosmetologist. She still cuts the family's hair (even extended family). That bogged down motor sound just reminds me of her using her old trimmers on hair and hitting a thick patch.
Sounds exactly like a Vibrosage, too. Probably the same function - just a magnetic field that alternates polarity at the same frequency as your power. With the Vibrosage and I imagine the clippers as well, there's a moving head connected to either another magnet or a coil, and the induced field oscillates it at the power frequency.
I would really like to see manufacturing standards become what they were in the 1920s and 30s where when you build something it’s basically good forever. Now I know that there’s a lot of different factors that come into play as to why companies no longer do this but it would still be nice to one day see this come again.
Lmao! I was a teacher way back and demonstrating how to use a growler! This was just when the magnetic strips first came out on credit and atm cards! I did the demo, left it on, wiped out the magnetic strips in my wallet! I left at the end of the day, filled my '76 Caddy, and couldn't pay! Fortunately I was a regular at that station and the owner let me go on the honor system to correct the error. I paid him about 30 minutes later after going to the bank.
I remember learning how a growler worked and HOW TO USE ONE in my training school. Like honestly it was 2014 and the Navy was teaching us how to use things like this😂
Typical military. I joined the navy in 1979, in 1980 I was trained in various systems on F4 phantoms, a jet designed in the late 50s. When I got out in 4 years all the defense contractors were designing things that would be operational in the 90s. Some good came of it. My health care at the VA is free because Im poor. The bad part, health care at the VA.
Greetings from the UK. I started my six year apprenticeship as an Armature Winder back in 1961. I remember growlers well and used a hacksaw blade just the same way as the demonstrator. I’m 77 now so it’s nice for people to share online now how things were done.
That tool in conjunction with a Meg. Ohm. Tester and a bar to bar device way faster and more precise than much of the newer equipment. I worked on motors for 20 plus years.
I have one of those at work. We work on commercial floor equipment, which occasionally involves rebuilding or servicing an electric motor beyond just a brush replacement. We have an armature lathe with an undercut wheel. The growler is detached but part of the set. I've only had to actually use that lathe maybe 4-5 times in the 8yrs ive worked there, but its handy when you have an armature that needs turned bc its not round anymore.
These awesome pieces of history are great and reliable for everything that you you restore I believe but I could be wrong about that. Great day today and have a good morning getting rolling on today's projects!
lol, don't nobody want to pay for that quality! I remember when I was a kid in the 70s, nobody had ac, but a family would have a couple fans to move air...the fans were so nice! beautiful steel machines that would last for literally decades! a fan cost like a week's wages.
Learned how to use one of them back in 1967. One of the teachers was old and insisted that we learn how to do basic motor rewinding. Told him that no electricians rewind motors in the real world. I was correct. Worked the next 50 years as an industrial electrician and never once saw a sparky use a growler or rewind a motor. Kinda of remember that you could get a nice shock from either an internal or maybe an external growler if you touched the copper commuter bars while using a growler.
Electricians never have wound motors. It's a separate trade. Since 1972. Electrical mechanics ...or in Canada, the trade is known as Electric Motors Systems Technicians (EMST). Growlers are still used today. And yes... you can get a jolt ⚡️ from testing an armature
@@Gretsch0997 That old teacher worked for the 3rd largest transportation company in the USA before WW2 where they had a few people rewinding trolley & subway motors but by the time I became an electrician they had several motor rewind shops perform repairs on all of their electric motors.
@@JohnThomas-lq5qp cool! I am still in the rewind trade today (at 54). I teach the Electric Motor repair apprenticeship trade up here in Calgary Canada. Our course has been active since 1972. I've been teaching here at SAIT for 20 years now. It's such a hidden trade. Not many have heard of.
@@Gretsch0997 For some reason here in the Philly area probably half of the motor rewind shops closed down in last 50 years. Of course this area probably lost 80% of the factories since then. Probably lost 5,000 jobs years ago just with the large Phil's. Naval Yard & Frankford Arsenal closings. Back in the late 1960's our Vo Tech electric shop took a your of both the GE & Westinghouse huge motor shops. GE had one of the countries largest lathe at that shop.Operator sat on a traveling chair. Westinghouse had a huge pit to sand blast motors. Still have the double sided spiral motor book think from Rosenberg. Earlier book had a green cover and the newer edition ( 1980's ) that I have had maroon color cover. Broke this book out s few times to show young electricians pictured & drawings of two phase motors that we had 50 years ago.
@@JohnThomas-lq5qp Hahh, there awesome !!! I have all those editions of Rosenberg as well. 2 phase !!! Ya those are interesting motors , for the time. Yes, Philly needs to reinvent itself. Even today. But I hear it's getting better
Its a leftover from a long gone era I'm afraid. If you had a shop, and found all the machines needed to check, test, rebuilt motors, and all that entails...you could maybe offer to do rebuilds. But where will you find a supplier of armatures? Used to be we'd just call the warehouse and swap one for like 10 bucks, give them the old core to send back for rebuild. Today its just cheaper to buy a rebuilt starter, motor, generator etc.
It's amazing to see the items and cars from this era lasting almost forever. We can't say the the same for the plastic junk and cars we are buying nowadays.
In fairness, they have gotten cheaper. If you spent the same amount equivalent, you could probably still get solid appliances and cars, but it costs a lot more.
My family has a starter/Alternator rebuilding business back in the late 70's... I remember using something very much like that And of course the broken hacksaw blade... That sound brought back memories...
That is one awesome piece of a test equipment. I've never seen anything like this. Then again I'm not into repairing electric motors. I suspect this 100 year old tool is far better than any of the technology they have in the crap today. This tools brilliant,..
I used one of them up until 22 years ago when I tested armatures during my apprenticeship which was in power tool repairs. My manager who died 5 years ago wound it since he was also a motor rewinder !
I used to work as car electrician when l was a teenager and used a similar machine to detect shorts in car starters, same way and fix them as possible..Tripoli , Libya
My first job was at place that rebuilt and sold alternators, and starters. We had one of these, although looked a little different, but used a hacksaw blade just like that. I learned how to test them and straighten starter shafts and run them on the lathe. Good memories.
I have top gear flashbacks when i saw the word Growler and confused Hamond :"we.. we've googled Growler and we were a bit confused but it was a big shock" 😂
I used one of these when refurbing electric motors. It was vital to the whole process. Would always replace bearings, undercut the com, replace brushes, and test armiture. Then reassemble and paint...
I’m 24 years old and I’m a mechanic. I didn’t know anything mechanical until about my sophomore year of high school. And I had to learn it myself by watching my older friends work on their car. I wish I was taught things like this in school.
I knew what that was before I even read the title. We used one in college (2012) in aviation maintenance. Ours looked a little different. They still use it, with a hacksaw blade and every thing.
Thats a blast from my past, We had one in British Airways on our work shop “Motor & Actuators”, we didn’t use it that often as some OEM’s such as Boing wouldn’t give authorisation to rewind, only renew. We just checked armature resistance balance mostly.
![Why Did They Stop Making These? [Restoration]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gh0SV8aPnMU/mqdefault.jpg)
If you want to know how this works, I give a more detailed explanation in the full growler restoration video.
Thank you for that tip, somehow I missed that video so I'll go find it!
Yes, please! That thing is amazing!
Of course it growls. It's a wild tool that needs rescuing.
I hope you can find a loving home soon.
My guess is that the machine is inducing a magnetic field in the armature and if the wiring is shorted somewhere you will get ... a phase shift between between the magnets that are are shorted which makes the hack saw blade to dance...
I started out good, but my logic broke down midsentence. I'll go and watch the video.
The growler? Really? I hope you know what that means in the UK 😂😂😂
I used one of those back in the day. My boss was a WW2 Veteran and he trained me on all the beautiful equipment he owned. I used this when checking , rebuilding starters, generators. He also had the machine to cut the grooves between the contacts perfectly every time. I also used to grind valves on his very old valve grinding machine. It ground valve seats also when doing a valve job. I those days we rebuilt stuff. Nowadays people just replace. Thanks for the trip back to my glory days in my 20's!!
Me to, in 1981 when I was in high school I got a job at a garage that summer where I started out cleaning and painting the place and by the end of the summer they had me pulling head's off of V8's and grinding the valve's on a Kwick Way valve grinding machine and grinding seats with the Kwick Way set, the older guy who owned the place his dad had originally opened it in the 20's and he'd worked there since he was a kid in the 30's before he went off to WW2, he taught me how to use their growler because they still rebuilt starters and generators that were on some of the 60's cars that were still around at that point, when I graduated from high school in 83 I went off to the Army and came back in 86, by then he'd retired and his son took it over and quit messing with rebuilding starters and that kind of stuff and just exchanged them for reman's at NAPA.
In 2001 I opened a motorcycle shop and went down there and ask his son if all that valve and seat grinding equipment was still there, after I left they'd quit doing that kind of work and had packed it up and had it on top of the office, he sold all the valve and seat grinding equipment for $250, that was a nice score.
@@dukecraig2402 Awesome!!! Same era for me too. I worked fixing cars my entire life. I should have gone to college ?! I was 20 in 79. Where I worked in Mass we had an antique Coke machine that still worked perfectly. And an old dog sitting in the office. Man miss those days!!
It's called an undercutting saw. Many different width saw blades, for different widths of mica. Turning and undercutting, were standard procedures for armatures. Even stoning, to seat the brushes. New brushes, take on the shape of the commutator, after touching the stone, instead of a single line of contact. We had rollers for static balancing, then we dynamic balanced afterwards. Back in the eighties.
@@everettplummer9725 I remember it well.
@@dadsvespaI’m teaching my daughter find something you love (like a car truck) and fix it fix it fix it better with the problems you know and can be ready or get caught out buying new problems
Cool to see a vintage tool being used to restore other vintage tools! Thanks for the demo
I hope nothing is lost to time.
For example, they can't figure out how to reverse engineer first generation Polaroid cartridge stock, so if they don't get it right soon, one high quality variety of Polaroids that we WERE capable of producing in the 1960s may become unknown to us. Certain aerospace insulating gels became unknown for 30 years, and it's a fine fading line that links us to the "once-were innovations" .
We real should conduct a history project to record every specialty scientist, engineer, technician, artisan and trades and craftsman of dying industries, and people who knew our old cultural practices. Our fathers and mothers knew a thing or two. We'll lose it if we don't save it. Could be an industrial chemical process, or a certain type of woven fabric (like sea silk) or just the words to a song or the rules of a game....
@@thomasrussell4674don’t worry there are still plenty of companies that do rewind
@thomasrussell4674 other than writing too long to read diatribes, what are YOU doing to preserve history?
No lo entenderías!.. @@LEOhopeful
Yeah, but find me a company that makes a growler today.@@Racing_Fox
Back when they used to be able to rebuild electric motors. Thank you for sharing
Every train you have been in has had the electric motor repaired at least a few time over the last 30 years
Consumer stuff might not be rewindable but commercial stuff still is
Electric motors are simply got way more affordable, the 1-3 HP range of your average small appliance just doesnt make sense to repair. We still rewind the multiple hundred horsepower big boys.
I saw a guy from Pakistan rebuild an electric motor. 99 % of Americans aren't taught a damn thing in American schools any more
On a side note (talking about what was…)
Do you remember the Lindbergh line of plastic ship and airplane models? Many of the kits came with a small plastic bag of electric motor parts, that when assembled allowed propellers to spin. Very educational and inexpensive (back then) STEM education before STEM was a thing!
In 1975 they taught us to use these in auto shop class,
it's a shame I hear they haven't been offering classes like this anymore.
Shit they stopped offering them 30 years ago where I grew up. Instead our entire county had a "vocational school" offering where the kids got bussed a county over. And the "vocational" options were laughable. It really seemed like a, "needs a 'diploma' but not quite bad enough to be relegated to the alternative school"-school
@@ObservationofLimits Public schools need more support not less from our state & federal government. I learned so many things from my dad and others, but I know so many other guys only learned that stuff from shop classes at school.
nobody repairs these anymore. Alternator not working? toss it and replace. Same for electric motors unless they're large and expensive then they get sent off to specialists.
@@TenebrusI07 I was rebuilding mine until the income situation permitted buying new ones. It's so nice to stop rebuilding everything myself.
Out of touch boomer
My dad was an unlicensed electrician, who could run rings around licensed guys back in the day. He worked in the shop. head of maintenance department 40 years. Did everything, electrical, machine, tool, repair, carpentry, hydraulics, you name it. And with excellence. He always used to talk about putting an armature on a growler. As a kid, I never understood what he was talking about, although I did grasp it was something used to test bad motors. It’s so hilarious now to realize the friggin thing is exactly what it was called! Very cool. Well you just closed the chapter on a lifelong internal question I never had an answer to! 😆
Lol Unlicensed literally equals,too drunk to pass the tests lol Your dad was an alcoholic for sure lol Hope he didn't beat you too hard.
If he can run rings around licensed electricians why wasn't he licensed?
Yeah your dad's sketchy bro
Yep, I see how this works and it would absolutely tell you which coil is burned up. It's simply reversing/inducing a magnetic field into the rotor and the ring on the commutator is just completing the circuit. Whoever built it... Cheers to you.
А где обмотка, которая сгорела? Почему он не показал?
@@FineFutureyou can tell which one is broken by the sound
@@FineFuturestay in Russia. Thanks
I love learning about older technology like this.
your username confirms that
Brings back memories of my summer job when in college. i used one of those to test armatures. Most of the time the problem could be cleared, but some had to go back for rebuilding again. The problem was usually a copper shaving from when the commutator was turned, or a sloppy setting of a lead.
Are these only for DC ( commutated) motors. Could they be used on brushless stator winding.
Do windings fail that often these days?
Is it cheaper to replace an armature than repair?
These are only for AC/DC Brushed motors, hence why it has a comm on the end. It's very rare for us to see windings fail at my job, much more common for the point of failure to be the connection between the winding and the comm. The cost really depends on the type of repair. Repairing or replacing a comm is easy, if the winding is fucked you're better off scrapping it for a freshy, ESSPECIALLY if its been varnished@@twickersruss
Dude. Never seen one of those in my life. I love it man. Some of the old tools are built so well and made to last forever. Hence the fact that you have one that's that old! Sick man! Keep it up!
I still believe that vintage tools will lasts forever and still do their job well
I swear the tech available 100 years ago was more useful than most stuff today
I kind of feel the same way. But it's just very different now, bad or good
I do love a good growler! 😜
You win the internet :D
I am so old I used to use one of these to repair old starters.
73 and still use it
I’m so old I used to build the testers of the tester! 😅
My mother was a cosmetologist. She still cuts the family's hair (even extended family). That bogged down motor sound just reminds me of her using her old trimmers on hair and hitting a thick patch.
Sounds like my fifty-year-old hair clippers. Excuse me while I go try to give myself a fade
Ha I was thinking the same, those motors last forever
On my bawls
Yep, you guys beat me to it.
Sounds exactly like a Vibrosage, too. Probably the same function - just a magnetic field that alternates polarity at the same frequency as your power. With the Vibrosage and I imagine the clippers as well, there's a moving head connected to either another magnet or a coil, and the induced field oscillates it at the power frequency.
Just like the old Sears and roebuck or Franklin I think sander a polisher
I would really like to see manufacturing standards become what they were in the 1920s and 30s where when you build something it’s basically good forever. Now I know that there’s a lot of different factors that come into play as to why companies no longer do this but it would still be nice to one day see this come again.
Lmao! I was a teacher way back and demonstrating how to use a growler! This was just when the magnetic strips first came out on credit and atm cards! I did the demo, left it on, wiped out the magnetic strips in my wallet! I left at the end of the day, filled my '76 Caddy, and couldn't pay! Fortunately I was a regular at that station and the owner let me go on the honor system to correct the error. I paid him about 30 minutes later after going to the bank.
Гроулером ?!?!?! 🤔🧐
Вы любитель пивасика ?!?!?!
😉😁🤣🤣🤣
What wonderful days😅
“You know those big welcome mats you’d see on a girl in the ‘70s?”
“I’m just going outside to wax the growler.”
"Does it have 4 seats?"
Are you from Illinois and now live in Florida??! I might know you, based on your name!
Good top gear reference!
OMG! ROFLMFAO! I nearly choked on my sausage!
Welcome mat, that's going in the memory bank 😂
I love using old, antique tools, and appliances. This is cool!
I have NEVER seen such a cool little growler. I am 75, just picked up an old growler for next to nothin
33 years old my highschool teach had one of these and taught me how to use it man bringin me back
Thank you for showing us your growler
I got taught at school that a “growler” was something totally different
😂
I was never taught what a growler was in school. What did they teach YOU that it was, if I may ask?
@@danefuentes3877It's slang for the lower beard on a lady.
@@techno1561 Oh......Oh, wow......
What awesome equipment. Love the reliability of all the old school tooling.👍
I remember learning how a growler worked and HOW TO USE ONE in my training school. Like honestly it was 2014 and the Navy was teaching us how to use things like this😂
Yep we used them in the Army in the late 90’s as well 😂
They are still a very useful tool. Railroads keep them on hand to test 600 VDC motors.
Typical military. I joined the navy in 1979, in 1980 I was trained in various systems on F4 phantoms, a jet designed in the late 50s. When I got out in 4 years all the defense contractors were designing things that would be operational in the 90s.
Some good came of it. My health care at the VA is free because Im poor. The bad part, health care at the VA.
They still use them at LeTourneau University Aviation School.
Greetings from the UK.
I started my six year apprenticeship as an Armature Winder back in 1961. I remember growlers well and used a hacksaw blade just the same way as the demonstrator. I’m 77 now so it’s nice for people to share online now how things were done.
I use our growler to demag large rotors and armatures before milling. Makes swarf clear much easier.
What is "SWARF" ???
I remember using one of those every day. Used to rebuild alternator and starters
Ah, I thought a growler was something else.
for beer?
I dropped a growler last night right before bed.
More like an angry beaver 😅😅😅
angry beavers calm down on entry
@@ketas So they say.
That tool in conjunction with a Meg. Ohm. Tester and a bar to bar device way faster and more precise than much of the newer equipment. I worked on motors for 20 plus years.
We learned on all of that in college. They still use the Megger and growler. GREAT tools.
Toolz, a man can never have too many tools!
I just love the aesthetic of antique tools.
103 Years and still working? Incredible!!
I have one of those at work. We work on commercial floor equipment, which occasionally involves rebuilding or servicing an electric motor beyond just a brush replacement. We have an armature lathe with an undercut wheel. The growler is detached but part of the set. I've only had to actually use that lathe maybe 4-5 times in the 8yrs ive worked there, but its handy when you have an armature that needs turned bc its not round anymore.
These awesome pieces of history are great and reliable for everything that you you restore I believe but I could be wrong about that. Great day today and have a good morning getting rolling on today's projects!
Iv always enjoyed playing with a growler but iv never played with something that would come from C3PO's Mrs 😂
Thanks,I learned something. You showed me how to pinpoint the specifis commutator bars.
Back when "make it as good as you can" is sadly a 100 years ago 😢
lol, don't nobody want to pay for that quality! I remember when I was a kid in the 70s, nobody had ac, but a family would have a couple fans to move air...the fans were so nice! beautiful steel machines that would last for literally decades! a fan cost like a week's wages.
I grew up with machines making noise occasionally but I didn't know why. Thank you😊
Learned how to use one of them back in 1967. One of the teachers was old and insisted that we learn how to do basic motor rewinding. Told him that no electricians rewind motors in the real world. I was correct. Worked the next 50 years as an industrial electrician and never once saw a sparky use a growler or rewind a motor. Kinda of remember that you could get a nice shock from either an internal or maybe an external growler if you touched the copper commuter bars while using a growler.
Electricians never have wound motors. It's a separate trade. Since 1972. Electrical mechanics ...or in Canada, the trade is known as Electric Motors Systems Technicians (EMST). Growlers are still used today. And yes... you can get a jolt ⚡️ from testing an armature
@@Gretsch0997 That old teacher worked for the 3rd largest transportation company in the USA before WW2 where they had a few people rewinding trolley & subway motors but by the time I became an electrician they had several motor rewind shops perform repairs on all of their electric motors.
@@JohnThomas-lq5qp cool! I am still in the rewind trade today (at 54). I teach the Electric Motor repair apprenticeship trade up here in Calgary Canada. Our course has been active since 1972. I've been teaching here at SAIT for 20 years now. It's such a hidden trade. Not many have heard of.
@@Gretsch0997 For some reason here in the Philly area probably half of the motor rewind shops closed down in last 50 years. Of course this area probably lost 80% of the factories since then. Probably lost 5,000 jobs years ago just with the large Phil's. Naval Yard & Frankford Arsenal closings. Back in the late 1960's our Vo Tech electric shop took a your of both the GE & Westinghouse huge motor shops. GE had one of the countries largest lathe at that shop.Operator sat on a traveling chair. Westinghouse had a huge pit to sand blast motors. Still have the double sided spiral motor book think from Rosenberg. Earlier book had a green cover and the newer edition ( 1980's ) that I have had maroon color cover. Broke this book out s few times to show young electricians pictured & drawings of two phase motors that we had 50 years ago.
@@JohnThomas-lq5qp Hahh, there awesome !!! I have all those editions of Rosenberg as well. 2 phase !!! Ya those are interesting motors , for the time. Yes, Philly needs to reinvent itself. Even today. But I hear it's getting better
Awesome ! Old equipment is sometimes better than the new equipment made today !
Used one of those all of the time as a kid rebuilding starters and alternators at my Dad's shop. Wasn't quite as old though.
One of my favorite jobs was rebuilding electric motors. Pretty involved.
I have used them as a mechanic, its very useful when rebuilding starters or anything with a armature.
Thank you for showing us your growler.
Do they still make these?
If so, where do I get one?
If not, how do I make one myself?
Its a leftover from a long gone era I'm afraid. If you had a shop, and found all the machines needed to check, test, rebuilt motors, and all that entails...you could maybe offer to do rebuilds. But where will you find a supplier of armatures? Used to be we'd just call the warehouse and swap one for like 10 bucks, give them the old core to send back for rebuild. Today its just cheaper to buy a rebuilt starter, motor, generator etc.
So nice to see that the growler is working perfectly
It's amazing to see the items and cars from this era lasting almost forever. We can't say the the same for the plastic junk and cars we are buying nowadays.
Cars were rebuilt very often back then.... Cars now do last longer, but cars peaked between about 1990 and 2010
In fairness, they have gotten cheaper. If you spent the same amount equivalent, you could probably still get solid appliances and cars, but it costs a lot more.
Grew up at my Dad's service station in the 1950s and 60s and we used a Growler quite often. A sound one can never forget.
I still have my late dad's growler that I use almost on a daily basis at my workshop
I remember rebuilding starters and alternators. We really didnt throw things away. Most young people dont understand.
Very super preservation it's antique but better than digital. Thanks bro very much
Sounds like the reverse unit in an old Lionel steam locomotive engine. I love those Lionel trains!
My family has a starter/Alternator rebuilding business back in the late 70's...
I remember using something very much like that
And of course the broken hacksaw blade...
That sound brought back memories...
That is one awesome piece of a test equipment. I've never seen anything like this. Then again I'm not into repairing electric motors. I suspect this 100 year old tool is far better than any of the technology they have in the crap today. This tools brilliant,..
I used one of them up until 22 years ago when I tested armatures during my apprenticeship which was in power tool repairs.
My manager who died 5 years ago wound it since he was also a motor rewinder !
Growlers are still used today at every motor repair shop around the globe. They are still considered the most reliable way of testing armatures.
I was trained in the use of the growler in 1986, great tool.
I used to use one in the 70's even down to using an old hacksaw blade. Brings back memories.
My dad was a winder he used to test armatures like this 45 years before when I was 8 year boy, now I remember
I've used one for 40 yrs in the electric motor business. It detects shorts only not opens and can't use on arm.with equals. In it. Handy for sure!
I used to work as car electrician when l was a teenager and used a similar machine to detect shorts in car starters, same way and fix them as possible..Tripoli , Libya
My first job was at place that rebuilt and sold alternators, and starters. We had one of these, although looked a little different, but used a hacksaw blade just like that. I learned how to test them and straighten starter shafts and run them on the lathe. Good memories.
Wowww...!!!!
And I thought I knew a few things about the subject....😂🙈
I've missed this one....🙈
Now I'm more humble than before....😊
This is hilarious, I was literally thinking about the growler the other day, I haven't seen one since college...awesome brother.
Where sis you go to college?
"No love, it's the growler that's making the noise"
I have a Snap on growler. I have not used in probably 30 years. The armature are pretty good today.
I used one in the 1970s, I rebuilt several starter motors!
I have top gear flashbacks when i saw the word Growler and confused Hamond :"we.. we've googled Growler and we were a bit confused but it was a big shock" 😂
I used one of these when refurbing electric motors. It was vital to the whole process. Would always replace bearings, undercut the com, replace brushes, and test armiture. Then reassemble and paint...
I love all those old tools! It's called a growler! And they taught how to use it at MMI when I was there in 2003!
I’m 24 years old and I’m a mechanic. I didn’t know anything mechanical until about my sophomore year of high school. And I had to learn it myself by watching my older friends work on their car. I wish I was taught things like this in school.
My Uncle Coy used one of these in the 1950s to test generator and starter armature in his repair shop. I haven't seen one of those in 50 years.
it looks solid and high quality
Man, that looks so cool!. Sounds cool! And I have absolutely no idea what it does. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating it
So cool! Can we go back to the simpler diagnostic days? The tools are so much cooler from days gone by...
That thing is in beautiful condition!
Very cool tool! I have never seen one before. Thanks for sharing 🤙
We used one of these back in the 70s ,very effective
I remember this being a question on my merchant mariner engineering license exam. Sailing 25 years now and this is the first time I've seen one.
This is so cool! I'm actually surprised this hasn't been modernized (to my personal knowledge, I'm always learning 😁)!
I knew what that was before I even read the title. We used one in college (2012) in aviation maintenance. Ours looked a little different. They still use it, with a hacksaw blade and every thing.
Thats a blast from my past, We had one in British Airways on our work shop “Motor & Actuators”, we didn’t use it that often as some OEM’s such as Boing wouldn’t give authorisation to rewind, only renew.
We just checked armature resistance balance mostly.
Don’t forget the hacksaw blade to finish the testing!
İt is really nice idea and machine to diagnose an armature. Thank you for sharing.
Nice to see you putting out some shorts❤
Simplicity at its finest
Another example of the useful repairablity and longevity we've left behind in our tools
I haven't seen or use a growler since the mid 70s! I mention these to people and they look at be like I have 3 heads. Great tool👍
This is the coolest tool I've seen in along time!
Haven't seen one of those things in ages! Cool video.
The sound of anger when something is wrong, should be setting this as life’s default sound for bad shit 😂
I learnt about these as an apprentice electrician in 1980 but never used one in practice 😊
Old tools sometimes are better than new they last forever
Never seen one of those before. Very cool. Thank you for sharing 😊
Sounds just like that retro football game where the figurines move by themselves across the steel plate of a field, crazy nostalgic noise tf
simple yet effective and reliable
The restoration video is great too
For use with rubber gloves ONLY! Dang that thing sounds like what I imagine an electric chair sounds like.