Nothing out of the ordinary until…
you take a closer look…
well, looks like its time for a diaphragm. I took the other bells apart and cleaned them all up and they were good. Was wondering why my horn sounded a bit higher pitched than normal.
What pressure are you blowing the K5 with? That type damage occurs when the horn’s blowing pressure is too high. Unless it is MK, do not blow it over 140 pounds.
Where did these diaphragms come from? We don’t sell diaphragms like that with that sheet-stock printing on them. This steel, if steel, will be too soft, another reason for the warping and wrinkling. Our dia’s are hard, mill steel and 0.018" metal thickness.
I bought the horn 2 years ago from realtrainhorns.net. i a going to be ordering the replacement diaphram from hornblasters. These horns have never been ran above 135 psi.
He must’ve had a bad batch (it happens), realtrainhorns.net do very evil things to their diaphragms on their nathans and they should happily blow to 200psi, 140 is nothing and hornblaster regulations dictate hornblasting with nathans must be done from 150+ :p.
Well, I will eventually be replacing all diaphragms with the Genuine OE diaphragms 
and I will have to sound these off at 150psi one of these days 
Be aware - high pressure can make them sound distorted and many say 125 psi is plenty for most horns.
Nathans sound weak under 140psi (too train like and not hornblastery enough). Besides, I can name 5 that it’s not high enough for max efficiency/volume. Shockers, Behemoths, Leslies, Maximus and Kleinns. When it comes to nathans, you get about 1db per psi up until about 150 psi after which you hit diminishing returns very quickly.
Incidentally, what are the highest spec horns that your overkill compressors can supply with no air tank?
125psi is what most locie pressure is. We blow our K’s at 105 for the prettiest sound, and yes, they are still quite powerful.
Leslie horns are very lacking in power…With those very long skinny throats and tiny diaphragm openings, they shriek out lots of HFH…And with their weak acoustic couplings, quite unreliable.
If you want the most power, you gotta lay out the most bucks…Nathan M5, 5/16" inlets. @145 PSI through 3/4" airline, the power is terrifying…
Another good contender is the Kahlenberg T3/F3. 8" dia’s and large throats make for tremendous power…
With K’s you will damage/destroy the horn blowing at pressures as high as 200 psi.
I don’t know if our compressors can supply enough volume (8 CFM @ 100 to 200 psi) for any horn but if it can the blast would be very short.
And yet the leslies are the loudest of all train horns, now or ever!!
The K in nathan k3 k5 etc stands for ‘king’ (no only joking). But Db wise they’re the loudest and are simply more efficient with their air than the M horns to achieve this volume.
Realtrainhorns.net service train horns for a living (they sell modded horns as a side business), they say 200psi is the max a nathan can do with their diaphragms and I agree as I have a friend who has no issues with them. The nature of the nathans sound changes at around 150psi and by 200 it only changes the Db intensity but not the pitch of the sound.
My personally modified leslie rs5-X will destroy even the loudest of WWII ship horns as they’ll hopefully exceed 160Db. Thus 5 evil bells beat 1 larger one. Also you have to consider the fact that higher pitched frequencies (to a point) are more audible and louder at close to medium range. Ship horns excel better at medium to long range.
Do your compressors actually get used for bouncy castles and large inflatables?Also how do they compete with engine driven ones like a york?
The loudest and most powerful 5-chime locomotive horn is the 5/16" M5. 2nd place goes to the 3/16" M5. 3rd place goes to the Airchime K5. 4th place goes to the Leslie S5A. 5th place is Leslie S5TFX. 6th place is Riley SuperTyfon (RS) 7th is Nathan P5, 8th is Airchime C5A. This is at 100 feet on axis.
The two most powerful warning signals on earth are the Chrysler air raid siren and the type-F diaphone. However for diaphragm-horns the king is the Kokums/Leslie 575 steam/air horn. Again, these measurements are at the correct 100 feet on axis.
You might get 160 db right at the mouths of the flares of your S5. But at 100 feet, that sound pressure will drop to around 116 - 117 db, no more, and less if you’re using an RS model.
I ran my K5 at 200 for a while. I didn’t really like the sound as it was sort of raspy or tinny. Now I would rather regulate it down fairly low for a nicer sound. An equally important benefit is more honk time out of the same size tank.
A K5 horn with adjustable preload can be run from 10 psi up to 300 psi. I startled everyone at the Boot Hill whistle blow in Jones, Michigan by blowing a loud toot on my K5LA with adjustable preload…by lung power!! Set at 200 - 300 psi, the horn will use less air volume, yet blow clearly and loudly.
Photo is of a K5 of mine with the adjustable preload.
Wow. Now that pic is a thing of beauty… I’ve never seen those before. Was it just the end caps that made these unique or were there other changes to that K?
Yes, this happen when you don’t use modified diaphragms that are reinforced to handle the extra pressure.
I have some of the chimes myself, they’re made in the very country responsible for the nathan airchimes creation- ENGLAND. Hmm, realtrainhorns.net are trying to get me to trade them for some american nathan k horns (them thinking the american raised letter ones are louder are more suited for my evil hornblasting endeavors).
Sorry but wwwhhhhatt?!?! :eek:
You think that a leslie RS5 is gonna be upstaged by any kind of nathan horn…NOPE!! They don’t call it ‘the king of all train horns’ for nothing man.
You don’t think that the ‘k’ series nathans are the loudest of their evil bunch of train horns…UR MAD!!!
Diaphones are weird things (thopugh I would like one), where train horns produce melodies, these things produce comical sounds that make them sound like a constipated pig. The evil Chrysler (which is the size of a small room afterall) may very well exceed my evil creations, but a diaphone can just dial ‘D’ for disaster, it’s gonna loose to my modded lezzers I’m afraid 
Oh, and @100ft my lezzers will definitely exceed 116Db (you’re quoting their stock Db levels, mine are well above that ;)).
“I have some of the chimes myself, they’re made in the very country responsible for the nathan airchimes creation- ENGLAND. Hmm, realtrainhorns.net are trying to get me to trade them for some american nathan k horns (them thinking the american raised letter ones are louder are more suited for my evil hornblasting endeavors).”
I hate to knock you outta your tree here, but the multi-chime horn for railroad locomotives was invented in Canada by Robert E. Swanson in 1949. (H6, H5, M5, K5, T5, P5, C5 in order over the yearz) Swanson was a native Canadian. It was Canada where the chime horn came from, not England. Hyson was the English licensee for AMCO in Canada. Nathan was the American licensee for AMCO in Canada. (Eh?)
"Sorry but wwwhhhhatt?!?!
You think that a leslie RS5 is gonna be upstaged by any kind of nathan horn…NOPE!! They don’t call it ‘the king of all train horns’ for nothing man.
You don’t think that the ‘k’ series nathans are the loudest of their evil bunch of train horns…UR MAD!!!
Diaphones are weird things (thopugh I would like one), where train horns produce melodies, these things produce comical sounds that make them sound like a constipated pig. The evil Chrysler (which is the size of a small room afterall) may very well exceed my evil creations, but a diaphone can just dial ‘D’ for disaster, it’s gonna loose to my modded lezzers I’m afraid
Oh, and @100ft my lezzers will definitely exceed 116Db (you’re quoting their stock Db levels, mine are well above that )."
The horns’ power levels I posted above are correct. Leslie SuperTyfons are well down the list, just above the Nathan P in power. That “king” of horns thing pisses me off, was coined by an American idiot, Harvey Henklemann, who is universally despised by collectors. The Nathan M5 is the most powerful of all locomotive horns, bar none. The common K5LA, used by most horn blasters, is louder in sound pressure by far than any Leslie S5 or RS5. You have to use physics here. Look at those skinny throats and tiny ID and openings into the throats…How are you going to get anything but HFH out of these SuperTyfons? Even the huge mega-phonic trumpets on the S5 can only amplify the sound by so much.
The M5 had tremendous throats, with huge inlets into the throats for the air pulses, which were also tremendous, using heavy clapper disks valving against the bronze seats to create the sound. The results were a very large ratio of LFH to HFH; chest-pounding power.
The K5LA is powerful, and sooper advanced, Swanson’s finest evolution of the multi-chime locomotive horn. The internal throats are large. The diaphragm opening into the throats are very large. But the old man designed these K throats to be very catenoidal. This results in a perfect mix of LFH & HFH, and the catenoid shape of the throats direct the sound sound straight forward, increasing the efficiency of the horn over any others in existence. The old M5 is antique and not good for blasting. If you want the ultimate power for blasting, use a K5LA…There is nothing you can do to make your RS5 come anywhere near the sound levels of an Airchime K5.
Although I was never a fan of the Leslie SuperTyfon S5T/RS5T, I liked and owned the most powerful of the SuperTyfons, the S5A (Uses bell numbers 247,277,311,370,440 on an open bracket), and I also had a few S5D (Uses bell numbers 277,330,392,440,554), which John had Kokums design to imitate Swanson’s M5. And the late John Leslie was a dear friend of mine, his designer E. Riley, inventor of the RS power chamber, liked and used my idea of placing a gasket between the barrel of the bell and the power chamber to help seal the acoustic coupling in his new RS (Riley SuperTyfon), in his case, he used a silicon rubber gasket (doughnut), whereas I used cardboard gaskets in my S5’s.
If you think that you can get 160db out of your tiny RS5, then please let me in on the secret!! We’ll be rich!!
The most powerful warning device on earth, the Chrysler air raid siren pumps out 133 db on axis at 100’. The sound is impressive, I have operated one that belongs to a friend.
This same friend also has a type-F diaphone, which he blows through a 4" ID line (That’s no typo, that is four inch diameter !!) out of a 1000 gallon air receiver. The type-F diaphone puts out 132.5 db…less than one db from the siren. The sound I can only describe as “giant” or “tremendous”.
And you seriously think that your Leslie SuperTyfon will even begin to come close to a K5, and yet you will get 160 db??!! I’m sorry, it can’t be done.
I can’t find the booklet for now that proves where airchimes origins started, I’ll have to find it as I didn’t think it was gonna be challenged. But I won’t dispute that for now any many years that they’ve been a canadian company (thought it was american).
I’m not even gonna bother arguing about the nathans and leslies, when I have them all setup I’m gonna have the issue that the nathans are going to be a k6la and not a k5 setup (with an insane mod to make them much louder) both of which I’ll produce a video for with a high end Db meter, and my ears as judge) just for you. Hows that sound eh ??
You have a K5 with adjustable pre-load end caps made in England … ? You got a pic of that you can share?
Yes, check below. I can also order/export them to you as well (as I sell these bells on behalf of airchime in this country and abroad to hobbyists and hornblasters). I can even sell you some nathan merchendise (mugs, electric horn keyrings that are recordings from nathans etc). This bell has a small tag mounted on it (as you can see).
I have loads that I could sell, do you think it’s worth selling on american ebay?
“Yes, check below. I can also order/export them to you as well (as I sell these bells on behalf of airchime in this country and abroad to hobbyists and hornblasters). I can even sell you some nathan merchendise (mugs, electric horn keyrings that are recordings from nathans etc). This bell has a small tag mounted on it (as you can see).
I have loads that I could sell, do you think it’s worth selling on american ebay?”
Hyson was bought out by SSD (Sydney Smith Dennis). Although SSD no longer casts the adjustable caps, many are still available since pairs of these K-bells were used together on various classes of English locies for signaling. The English RR’s all liked the new K-series, but they, like a few Canadian RR’s wanted the K’s to be adjustable for the different pressures on different locie classes. So the old man created adjustable cap-sets…The first type was called “MK” (Modification K), but the Brits did not like them. However the PGE RR in Canada loved them and a few of these super-rare chimes were used on their Budd rail cars. These rare horns were called “MK5H”. Photo is one of mine (Serial #3234) So the old man had his main engineer redesign and simplify these to the ones in our photos.
The best British-made K horn was for marine purposes. It was the K3L 2L 1L 1 2, and it used the adjustable caps in the above photos. The K5 in my first photo is a Hyson/SSD 1L, 1,2,3A, 4A-mod.
