Rough and Tumble Engineering

by James H. Maggard

BOILER FEEDERS

Injectors have a dangerous rival in the Moore Steam Pump or boiler feeder for traction engines, and the reason this little pump is not in more general use is the fact that among the oldest methods for feeding a boiler is the independent steam pump and they were always unsatisfactory from the fact that they were a steam engine within themselves, having a crank or disc, flywheel, eccentric, eccentric yoke, valve, valve stem, crosshead, slides, and all the reciprocating parts of a complete engine. Being necessarily very small, these parts of course are very frail and delicate, were easily broken or damaged by the rough usage to which they were subjected while bumping around over rough roads on a traction engine. The Moore Pump, manufactured by The Union Steam Pump Company, of Battle Creek, Mich., is a complete departure from the old steam engine pump, and if you take any interest in any of the novel ways in which steam can be utilized send to them for a circular and sectional cuts and you can spend several hours very profitably in determining just how the direct pressure from the boiler can be made to drive the piston head the full stroke of cylinder, open exhaust port, shift the valve open steam port and drive the piston back again and repeat the operation as long as the boiler pressure is allowed to reach the pump and yet have no connection whatever with any of the reciprocating parts of the pump, and at the same time lift and force water into the boiler in any quantity desired.

Another novel feature in this "little boiler feeder" is that after the steam has acted on the cylinder it can be exhausted directly into the feed water, thus utilizing all its heat to warm the water before entering the boiler. Now it required a certain number of heat units to produce this steam which after doing its work gives back all its heat again to the feed water and it would be a very interesting problem for some of the young engineers, as well as the old ones, to determine just what loss if any is sustained in this manner of supplying a boiler. If you are thinking of trying an independent pump, don't be afraid of this one. I take particular pride in recommending anything that I have tried myself, and know to be as recommended.

And a boiler feeder of this kind has all the advantage of the injector, as it will supply the boiler without running the engine, and it has the advantage over the injector, in not being so delicate, and will work water that can not be handled by the best of injectors.

We have very frequently had this question put to us: "Ought I to grease my gearing?" If I said "yes," I had an argument on my hands at once. If I said "no," some one would disagree just as quickly, and how shall I answer it to the satisfaction of most engineers of a traction engine?

I always say what I have to say and stay by it until I am convinced of the error. Now some of you will smile when I say that the only thing for gear where there is dust, is "Mica Axle Grease." And you smile because you don't know what it is made of, but think it some common grease named for some old saint, but that is not the case. If these people who make this lubricant would give it another name, and get it introduced among engineers, nothing else would be used. You have seen it advertised for years as an axle grease and think that is all it is good for; and there is where you make a mistake. It is made of a combination of solid lubricant and ground or pulverized mica, that is where it gets its name, and nothing can equal mica as a lubricant if you could apply it to your gear; and to do this it has been combined with a heavy grease. This in being applied to the gear retains the small particles of mica, which soon imbed themselves in every little abrasion or rough place in the gearing, and the surface quickly becomes hard and smooth throughout the entire face of the engaging gear, and your gear will run quiet, and if your gearing is not out of line will stop cutting if applied in time.

It will run dry and dust will not collect on the surface of your cogs, and after a coating is once formed it should never be disturbed by scraping the face of the gear, and a very little added from time to time will keep your gear in fine shape. Its name is against it and if the makers would take a tumble to themselves and call it "Mica Oil" or some catchy name and get it introduced among the users of tight gearing, they would sell just as much axle grease and all the grease for gearings.

FORCE FEED OILER

Force feed oiler come next on the list. This is something not generally understood by engineers of traction and farm engines, and accounts for it being so far down the list. But we think it will come into general use within a few years, as an oiler of this kind forces the oil instead of depending on gravity.

The Acorn Brass Works of Chicago make a very unique and successful little oiler which forces a small portion of oil in a spray into the valve and cylinder, and repeats the operation at each stroke of the engine, and is so arranged that it stops automatically as soon as the oil is out of the reservoir; and at once calls the attention of the engineer to the fact, and it can be regulated to throw any quantity of oil desired. Is made for any size or make of engine.