Greetings all,
I just finished reading the page (for the umpteenth time) at RexResearch about Wesley Gary's magnetic devices. Jeez, sometimes it feels like it takes forever to fully absorb a simple concept. Maybe it's just a sign of age. Sigh...

If you take the time to read that whole page SLOWLY and CAREFULLY, it'll hit you like a ton of bricks. Wesley Gary was a full 50 YEARS ahead of Lester Hendershot!
Go read it, then come back here.
Wesley Gary's Magnetic Motor
Remember the device from the first patent, the one with the gear wheel and the coil wound on the end of the lever? The flat core of the coil is positioned on what Gary called the "neutral line," a distinct point at which the iron bar is NOT influenced (i.e., polarized) by the magnet. A slight downward movement of the lever then moves the core OFF the neutral line and causes the immediate polarization of the bar, WHICH ALSO INDUCES A CURRENT IN THE COIL. A spring beneath the lever prevents the bar from contacting the magnet (thereby avoiding becoming "stuck" to it), forcing it back up to the neutral line.
THIS IS EXACTLY how the "buzzer" works in Hendershot's Mark III. Hilton alludes that the two coils were physically attached to the bar, and that a spring adjustment was used to distance the assembly from the magnet. At a particular point, when the bar becomes polarized by the magnet, a current is generated. This current then makes its way through the oscillatory circuitry and returns through the two coils on the iron bar, generating a magnetic field, which causes attraction to the magnet, and the whole cycle starts all over again.
The Gary text refers to the fact that Gary was able to get a spark off of his vibrating coil. A SPARK!?

Whether or not Hendershot was aware of Gary's work we will likely never know. With his knowledge of magnetics, however, it is reasonably certain that Hendershot knew that a "neutral" point existed, a point at which an iron bar would not be polarized by the magnet, and that a polarity flip occurs on both sides of that boundary.
So, at last, the "Hendershot Mystery" is solved. The final piece of the puzzle has been fit into the eighty five year old jigsaw puzzle. The remaining details of implementation and replication are left to those "skilled in the art," as they say in Patentville.
Sigh. Somebody please wipe me up from the floor. I feel liked an overcooked noodle.
Cheers, all.

Chris
Leave a comment: