In order also to keep the water gauge in proper condition, it should be frequently blown out in the following manner: Shut off the top gauge cock and open the drain cock at the bottom of the gauge. This allows the water and steam to blow through the lower cock of the water gauge, and you know that it is open. Any lime or mud that has begun to accumulate will also be carried off. After allowing the steam to escape a few seconds, shut off the lower gauge cock, and open the upper one, and allow it to blow off about the same time. Then shut the drain cock and open both gauge cocks, when you will see the water seek its level, and you can feel assured that it is reliable and in good working condition. This little operation you should perform every day you run your engine. If you do you will not think you have sufficient water in the boiler, but will know. The engineer who always knows he has water in the boiler will not be likely to have an explosion. Especially should you never start your fire in the morning simply because you see water in the gauge. You should know that there is water in the boiler.
Now if your pump and boiler are in good working condition, and you leave the globe valve in the supply pipe to the pump open, with the hose in the tank, you will probably come to your engine in the morning and find the boiler nearly full of water, and you will think some one has been tampering with the engine. The truth is, however, that as the steam condensed, a vacuum was formed, and the water flowed in on account of atmospheric pressure, just as it flows into a suction pump when the plunger rises and creates a vacuum in the pump. Check valves are arranged to prevent anything passing out of the boiler, but there is nothing to prevent water passing in.
The only other cause of an explosion, beside poor material in the manufacture of the boiler, is too high steam pressure, due to a defective safety valve or imperfect steam
gauge. The steam gauge is likely to get out of order in a number of ways, and so is the safety valve. To make sure that both are all right, the one should frequently be tested by the other. The lever of the safety valve should frequently be tried from time to time, to make sure the valve opens and closes easily, and whenever the safety valve blows off, the steam gauge should be noted to see if it indicates the pressure at which the safety has been set.
WHEN YOUR ENGINE IS ALL RIGHT, LET IT ALONE.
Some engineers are always loosening a nut here, tightening
up a box there, adjusting this, altering that. When an engine is all right they keep at it till it is all wrong. As a result they are in trouble most of the time. When an engine is running all right, LET IT ALONE. Don’t think you are not earning your salary because you are merely sitting still and looking on. If you must be at work, keep at it with an oily rag, cleaning and polishing up. That is the way to find out if anything is really the matter. As the practised hand of the skilled engineer goes over an engine, his ears wide open for any peculiarity of sound, anything that is not as it should be will make itself decidedly apparent. On the other hand, an engineer who does not keep his engine clean and bright by constantly passing his hand over it with an oily rag, is certain to overlook something, which perhaps in the end will cost the owner a good many dollars to put right.
Says an old engineer[3] we know, “When I see an engineer watching his engine closely while running, I am most certain to see another commendable feature in a good engineer, and that is, when he stops his engine he will pick up a greasy rag and go over his engine carefully, wiping every working part, watching or looking carefully at every point that he touches. If a nut is working loose, he finds it; if a bearing is hot, he finds it; if any part of his engine has been cutting, he finds it. He picks up a greasy rag instead of a wrench, for the engineer that understands his business and attends to it never picks up a wrench unless he has something to do with it.”
This same engineer goes on with some more most excellent advice. Says he:
“Now, if your engine runs irregularly, that is, if it runs up to a higher speed than you want, and then runs down, you are likely to say at once, ‘Oh, I know what the trouble is, it is the governor.’ Well, suppose it is. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to shut down at once and go to tinkering with it? No, don’t do that. Stay close to the throttle valve and watch the governor closely. Keep your eye on the governor stem, and when the engine starts off on one of its speed tilts, you will see the stem go down through the stuffing box and then stop and stick in one place until the engine slows down below its regular speed, and it then lets loose and goes up quickly and your engine lopes off again. You have now located the trouble. It is in the stuffing box around the little brass rod or governor stem. The packing has become dry and by loosening it up and applying oil you may remedy the trouble until such time as you can repack it with fresh packing. Candle wick is as good for this purpose as anything you can use.