On Oct 1, 10:53*pm, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
"Tom Watson" wrote:
I was out visiting my Mom last weekend and I spoke with an old friend
who happens to be of the Amish persuasion. *He has a woodshop that
runs off of a waterwheel and he creates some very nice, albeit
rough,
country furniture. *Emil said to me, "You Englishers seem to be
having
quite a problem with this oil thing. *I hope you all don't finally
decide to use the creek. *It's a small creek and would only support
a
couple of Englishers, although it could probably handle fifty or so
more of us Amish.

Emil has never been a subtle man.

But he has always been truthful.

Sounds like you were in Lancaster County.

Travel 400 miles west and you are in Wayne County, Oh where I grew up
among a very sizeable Amish population.

They were allowed to use internal combustion engines for stationary
power to run saw mills.


I read (IIRC FWW some 20 years ago) that the (some?) Amish are allowed
diesel engines as they do not involve electrical stuff to operate and
start easily with (optionally hand-pumped) compressed air. The article
dealt with a shop which was run entirely on hydraulic motors and air.
The air router they showed intrigued me enough to go chasing after one
until I found out the cost and the insane CFM required to produce 1 HP
on that particular model. It looked like a pretty serious operation
all run off one stationary diesel.

r