Sight glass questions

[Steve Bratina]

Nice idea but be aware that if you blow the gauge glass down, the ball will drop down and prevent the steam side of the glass from cleaning itself. Only the water side will be able to be blown out. If you do a proper gauge glass blowdown ,isolating the steam and water sides separately, again, you won't be able to blow down the steam side. Just a thought.

[Kimball McGinley]

Yes, Bill's post did mention to include a feature to keep the ball from sealing. Unfortunately, it is kind of easy to overlook since it is below the photos.

[Steve Bratina]

Ok, so what is the feature? Any kind of ring with slits in it would still restrict the flow where a good blowing action is reduced. For reading a water level, Dave's glass or any glass with a red stripe works quite nicely.

[Bill Shields]

I am not that silly....blow-downs work just fine.

There really isn't too much to see - just use your imagination:

The holes in the fittings top and bottom are drilled on center and have elongated slots running to the sides so that the ball cannot close the passages.

Glasses with stripes are OK to see in good light and / or if you are not 90% blind from glaucoma and are sitting in the correct position.

I can tell at a glance from 20' away if I have enough water in the boiler.

Remember - I spend a lot of time sitting behind the tender while students run the loco.

[PSeyfrit]

Looking at your backhead I see the line running from the top of the boiler to the left thru a check valve down to a tee fitting and back into a fitting on the backhead. Was wondering what its purpose was.

[Bill Shields]

It is a feed for compressed air to supply draught during steam-up.

Below the foot-plate there is a fitting for air to connect.

I do not like introducing compressed air into the boiler, so valves allow either air or steam to the blower that is fed through the back head fitting, up a dry stay into the smoke box.

[bcody]

In looking at the set-up for starting air I can only add one thing. Use a pressure regulator set at say 30 PSI and the boiler will transition from compressed air to steam if you crack the steam blower valve prior to firing the boiler. For you guys that oil fire you can use the same air source for your burner and it will transition to steam automatically.


Bill

[bcody]

Forgot to mention you need to add check valves in the air supply line to protect your air hose from steam pressure/temperature.


Bill