Cousino Boiler

 

Cousino Boiler   This boiler was fabricated by Walter F. Cousino of Toledo, Ohio who was an excellent metal fabricator. Cousino had invented an impact actuated lawn mower that used about one-tenth the power of a conventional rotary lawn mower, patent #3,802,171 and was interested in powering it with steam. 

He became acquainted with Charles Keen of Madison, Wisconsin and Keen designed this boiler that Cousino made.  Keen had hired Abner Doble in the late 1940’s when Doble was working for Nordberg designing a steam powered bus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to design a boiler for him to put in a Stanley 20 hp condenser car.  Keen ended up making three of these essentially Doble “F” designs.  The Cousino boiler is slightly smaller than the other boilers that Keen made. In 1969Cousino Boiler  Charles Keen flew to Toledo to fire up the boiler and adjust the controls and he died of a heart attack in the motel at the airport.  That was the end of Cousino’s work with steam.  The burner is a steam atomizing nozzle and the quartz rod controller is conventional Doble.