File:C. C. Tuch - 1910-12-20 - Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu, HI), p. 3.jpg

Summary

The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]), 20 Dec. 1910. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1910-12-20/ed-1/seq-3/>

WILL SCRAP HEAP EVERY POWER PLANT

Honolulu Man Has Model of Power Generating Machine to Convince Skeptics.
INVITES PUBLIC INSPECTION
Invention Either Tremendous Find or Heartbreaking Mistake of Christian Tuch.

In the old tannery building back in the lantana in Kalihi-kai down by the slaughter house, is a machine that will either revolutionize the whole world of power generating plants or turn out to be a crushing disappointment to Christian Tuch, the Honolulu inventor. The machine is the working model of the "power generating machine" he has been planning out theoretically for some years and for which he holds American, Canadian, British, French, and Belgian patents with the German patent applied for.

It is the machine The Advertiser has referred to several times during the past year as a perpetual motion machine although tho inventor strenuously objects to having attached to his discovery a name that has been so frequently associated with lunatics.

After a great deal of trouble brought about by lack of funds, Mr. Tuch has his machine set up and in running order. And it works!

It is a crude bit of machinery as it stands. Parts that are designed to be of cut steel are now of chiseled oak; other parts of the working model are bits of scrap machinery; pulleys and belts are homemade — but it works and, according to Mr. Tuch, comes up to his wildest expectations.

On Wednesday afternoon next, at two o'clock, the inventor invites the practical machinists of the city, the electrical experts and others interested to come and watch his machine work, try it out and either convince themselves that he has a wonderful discovery in a method of power generation or that he has fooled himself, wasted several years of his life and thrown away the earnings of a lifetime in working upon and patenting something that is not what he believes.

Old Power Newly Applied.

Mr. Tuch describes his discovery as the utilization of an old power in a new way. The machine, in short, is something whereby power applied becomes multiplied. He drives it by electricity conveyed through wires from the Hawaiian Electric plant and with it develops electricity in a dynamo driven by the machine, the electrical power developed being four times greater than that used.

At the present time the machine is driven by alternating current motors and the power developed is with a direct current dynamo. Had he been able to secure in Honolulu an alternating current dynamo he claims he would use the Hawaiian Electric power only to start his generator then continue to drive it with power self-developed while surplus power would be stored up.

To the average mechanic, to talk of a machine driving itself, is arrant nonsense, but Mr. Tuch claims that he has the ocular demonstration and will prove it to tho satisfaction of anyone on Wednesday afternoon.

For the demonstration, he invites anyone who knows machinery and power plants, while the electrical experts are invited to bring with them their testing apparatus to measure the electricity that goes into the driving of the machine and compare it with the electric fluid drawn off.

Not an Impossibility.

It is not altogether outside the bounds of reason to suppose that this modest Honolulu mechanician has what he believes he has. The fact that he is not wealthy and that his machine is a crude affair does not mean that it is simply the product of a crank's brain.

The Wright Brothers, whose principles are now in use on every machine that flies, were cranks, poor and looked down upon by neighbors, as they worked and whittled away in their little shop at Dayton, Ohio, but presidents and crowned monarchs were proud to honor them after their machines had actually flown.

Stevenson was a crank, Bell was a crank, Edison was the worst crank of all, but if Tuch has what he says he will show to the experts of Honolulu on Wednesday afternoon next, his name will be greater in tho world than any of these.

Just for Example.

His invention, he says, can be applied to anything that requires power. As an example of what he believes it will accomplish, he says:

"Place one of the power generators on a battleship, with storage batteries sufficient to start the machine and keep it running for two minutes, the machine will then run on its own power and will drive the battleship propellers until the engines wear out. There need not be a pound of fuel for boilers carried. The cruising radius of the ship will be unlimited and all the room now taken up in bunkers, all the time consumed in coaling ship, all the men required in the stokers' hold, all the money required to purchase coal and all the power now lost in transmitting the energy of the coal into driving power by steam will be saved."

This is just an example. His machine will drive irrigation pumps, will drive automobiles, will operate factories, will do anything, in short that is done now by any power, and at a minute fraction of the cost. The invention, if it is actually one, will scrap heap most of the machinery in the world.

Licensing

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