The Steamboating Forum

Dear Forum Colleagues

Thanks to the good offices of my friend and fellow steamboater, Chris Doughty, I have acquired a very pretty, possibly antique, water gauge made by Dewrance of London.

It is marked Catalogue Number 30 and would have fitted between holes of 9 1/2" apart on its original boiler. The intersting bit is that it comes with a glass protector which has three steel/iron plates instead of the more ususual toughened glass. They look to be original as they are black with a sort of pitted star finish. Of course it may simply be that somebody has painted over rust pitting, but it is very even... The cover had a knurled bolt which implies to me that having looked at the gauge through the open side, the operator would turn the cover to hide the glass and lock it.

So, how about some informed guesses about the application from which it was derived? Was it a locomotive, some industrial application or something quite wacky? When might that have been?



Regards

Pete

Pete,
The knurled screw is a normal fitment to hold the protector in place so it is easily removed. The gauge looks like a normal type to me but possibly fitted to superman's boat ? there would be no point in a gauge you could not see!!!
by the way the handles on all gauge glasses should point downwards in the operating position this is in case of movement by vibration, It drives me nuts to see them otherwise, as on most locomotives!.
The drain cock in this case looks like the type using parallel packing strips instead of the more modern Klinger AB sleeves. These old type are easily overhauled once you have the knack and the correct material.
regards
Jack

Dear Jack

Thanks for that information.

It would be nice to use it on the boat, so I will give some thought how it might be applied to the pending Lune Valley type boiler. The original design for the latter has gauge glass ports in the upper drum spaced at 100mm centres, so a little bit of thought may be necessary!

Point taken about the valve levers (See photo).

Regards

Pete