Mechanics of the Household / A Course of Study Devoted to Domestic Machinery and Household Mechanical Appliances

by E. S. Keene

The initial supply of vapor being generated, the needle-valve may be opened and the gas lighted above the burner I-I, where it should burn in little jets at each opening with the characteristic Bunsen flame. It sometimes happens that the generator is not heated sufficiently, by the generating flame, to vaporize the necessary gasoline for starting the burner; in this case liquid gasoline will be forced from the opening G, and the burner will flare up intermittently in a red smoky flame. When this occurs the burners must be regenerated.

Gasoline Sad Irons.

—The use of gaseous or liquid fuel is always attended by an element of danger, because of the possibility of accidental explosion. The use of gasoline, the most highly volatile of all liquid fuels, has, however, come to be very generally used as a source of heat for domestic purposes. The danger of accident in the use of gasoline as a fuel for heating sad irons is largely due to ignorance of the involved mechanism or carelessness in manipulation. A knowledge of the principle included in their operation, together with an observance of the possible cause of accident, will reduce the element of danger to a negligible quantity.

The use of gasoline sad irons has come into favor because of their convenience and economy in operation. These irons, in common with the use of gasoline in its other applications of heating and lighting, are made in a great many forms but the principle of operation is confined to two types.

Fig. 203.—Gasoline flat-iron operated by a heated fuel tank.

Fig. 204.—Gasoline flat-iron showing the position of the cover while initial charge of gas is being generated.

First, those in which the gasoline is forced into the generator by the vapor pressure, from the heated supply tank; and second those in which the pressure is caused by pumping air into the supply tank after the manner of the hollow-wire system of lighting.

The first type of iron is illustrated in Fig. 203. The same iron is shown in Fig. 204, with the top in position for generating vapor pressure necessary to start the burner. The body of the iron A is a hollow casting, designed to receive the generator and burner in such position that the bottom portion of the iron may be uniformly heated. The generator and burner are shown in detail in Fig. 205, in which a sectional view is given of the parts, cut across lengthwise of the iron.