Releasing Device "which can be applied to the releasing of hitched animals, such as horses in fire houses." He was granted US Patent 490211 the next year. Nielsen and Alameda Fire Chief Frederick Keller Krauth, Jr. registered in 1897 for an improved Hose Nozzle. Their multi-headed design included a novel method of switching between a single stream, a double stream, and a wider spray, anticipating the modern manually adjustable fog nozzle. This design was used by the Alameda Fire Department and others. Workshop inventions In 1898, Nielsen filed a patent for an Acetylene Gas Generator. His central drip generator, designed for use in automobiles and similar portable lamps, proposed to use calcium carbide to generate gas as well as to dehydrate the gas after production. When the carbide was spent, the mechanism would cut off the flow of water and automatically give an alarm. When was awarded in 1900, local newspapers celebrated Nielsen's patent for a "gas generator" or "acetylene gas meter." In January 1910 the Alameda Times-Star reported that "H.P. , an automobile expert of this city," had patented an electrical automobile starter. No such patent can be found, and it is likely that the newspaper misattributed a foreign patent by Herman Nielsen to the local inventor. Similarly, in 1912 the Times-Star announced that Nielsen had, patented a new electric welding device in partnership with Otto Beckman of Oakland, but no matching patent has been found. Caster wheel designs In the late 1920s, Nielsen patented several inventions related to caster wheels. Nielsen is listed as assignor to the Eames Company of San Francisco. This company, maker of "invalid chairs, steel wheels and rubber tired ball bearing wheel goods," was owned by Adrian J Merle, for whom Nielsen had built a biplane in 1910. In 1927, Nielsen patented an improved caster wheel to solve the problem of tire creep and side flex under heavy load: .His wheel structure included disks clamped to either side of the wheel, and a webbed fabric structure integrated into the rubber of the tire. In the same year, Nielsen filed a patent for Wheel Structures comprising a swivel caster with ball bearings. He refiled in 1930, and was granted . The same year he filed and was issued a patent for a caster wheel brake structure, . Personal life Nielsen and his family were subject to frequent news coverage, his name frequently misspelled as "Nielson."