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| It took about three weeks to salvage the machines. These are early 1990 dollars. We spent about $12,000 to remove and rehab the machines. We cut the shafts in 1/2 and made 4 turbines from the two camelbacks. We got $125,000 to rehab and retrofit one machine to Pioneer. We sold the other 1/2 of that machine for $25,000, as is. WE installed the other 1/2 of the second machine at our Tannery Pond site. We still own the fourth machine. These machines were on 50 feet of head. The thickness of the buckets to withstand that head was 3/8 inch plate. A little white blasting to get the scale off of them and a coat of paint produced a unit that was 90 % of brand new. If I purchased these individual Francis turbine/gatecases from Voith today, they would cost around $300,000 dollars per turbine. But the Livermore Falls camel back machines had two turbines (left hand and right hand) on a common shaft. So to reproduce the entire camelback with its heavy castings would cost around $700,000 in todays dollars. Did we make any money? We sure had a lot of fun!!!
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Removing the hydraulic turbines from Livermore Falls Gorge
