In August 2018 I volunteered to coordinate restoration of an old cotton gin here in the Nacogdoches area. The effort is funded by the Bright Foundation of Nacogdoches. Ultimately, the restored gin will be located at Millard's Crossing; a historic village in Nacogdoches.

I dropped a couple of shots of the restoration in another automotive thread and was encouraged to open a separate thread to track progress.

My participation has been voluntary but we've engaged a couple of paid helpers and have paid for services such as sandblasting, welding and sheetmetal fabrication.

If things go well the gin will be operational and could potentially gin a few bales for an occasional exhibition.

The gin we're restoring was operated by the Langston Bros of Garrison TX. It closed in the late 1930s, as did many gins in East Texas as cotton moved west and out of the piney woods.

Where we started

It was a mess. The gin building had collapsed much of the duct work had separated and was scattered.
This is the view from the south end where the gin press was located.



One of the gin stands with timbers located as we found them



This was a 3 stand gin. Stands as they looked after the collapsed roof had been removed

The gin was colocated with a saw mill. Both were steam powered. Many old gins and mills in the area had been converted from steam to IC engines but ours had remained steam.

One of 3 steam engines on the site



Steam engines need a boiler. Here's ours as we began to remove the firebrick.



And the boiler after brick was removed. Took a lotta steam to power three engines. This bad boy is almost 20 ft long and 6 1/2 ft in diameter. It was made by Houston, Stanwood and Gamble of Cincinnati.

An interesting story about this flying ball Governor:



These contraptions govern the RPM speed of steam engines. In researching how to repair it I found a site called SmokStak; bunch of steam enthusiasts sharing info.

Someone posted contact info for a guy in Ursa IL who is the expert on these Gardner governors.

I called him. He asked for a serial number and called back the next day. He had purchased company records and spare parts when the company closed several years ago.

He checked the records and told me that this Governor was shipped by Wabash RR on 25 July 1912 to Peden Iron and Steel in Houston and sold for $48.

This little jewel is a steam driven feed water pump:



I had no idea what it was when I took this pic. It was well away from the gin and boiler and the water pipes had been broken off it long ago. I sat it aside for several weeks before finally researching it.

Made by Union Steam Pump Co of Battle Creek MI.

It can pump again but will take some detailed machine work.

Interestingly, it pumped water from a spring about 50 yards away on my family land.

Continually amazed by the engineering and ingenuity of the steam era. This machine converts steam energy to hydraulic power.

It provided power to run a hydraulic piston which compressed lint into bales.

It's was located outside the gin building and has been exposed to the elements for probably 100 years. It's disassembled and looks restorable



And the hydraulic cylinder it drove:



Or at least the exposed top of it. It was buried in the ground vertically. The piston moved freely after we pulled the cylinder out of the ground.

Where do you drop the LS in

This is awesome

Finally some evidence that I've actually restored something.
First a shot of how the stands looked when we pulled them out of the collapsed gin building:





And the same parts as they look today:

In addition to the three Continental stands that were operating when the gin closed in 39 or 40, there were three much older stands that had been pulled out of service and placed in a storage shed behind the gin.

These older gins were built by Lummus Gin Co of Columbus GA

This is the gin door of one of the Lummus stands as we found it. Even with the fading and weather exposure you can see that the Lummus logo is pretty artsy. This stand may date to the 1890s. I'm still researching manufacture dates.



Here's the same door after putting in joining biscuits and regluing. Oh, and several coats of primer. Prime, sand, then repeat about 5 times. The newly painted door is now with an artist friend in Nac who will paint on the Lummus logo.

Someone asked earlier if the colors we're using are original to when the gin stands were new. My answer was basically, "as close as we could match 100 year old paint.

I also used some examples from the web. Here's a stand restored by the Lummus Corp. The stand is in the Smithsonian.



We have a Lummus stand very similar to this one but ours is smaller; a 60 saw gin vice the 80 saw stand in the Smithsonian.

These things were more than a machine, they were works of art. Ours will look this good, guaranteed.

This steam engine is displayed in Mississippi but appears to be exactly like the one that ran our gin.



Same size, same manufacturer and the flywheel looks about the same size as ours.

Ours is in pieces now with the cylinder and piston in the machine shop for boring and having an oversized piston built.

Red and green seem to be the go to colors for this stuff.