Harris style Gauge Glass assembly

[steamer]

That looks like a beautiful day in the neighborhood!.... :

You know it's a bad day when you can't tell if it's forward or aft! ;D
I "think" it's forward...

Dave

 

[Dan Rowe]

Guys,

Under normal conditions the balls float and only set hard against their seat when there is a massive pressure drop, i.e. broken glass. I have seen balls which are sluggish in operation due to a build up of sludge in the water columns and then into the glass mountings when blowing down the glass. This is mostly due to poor boiler maintenance,higher than permissible levels of TDS in the boiler water resulting in carry over and dare I say it priming. Poor maintenance can also result in the balls being dropped, lost in the bilge and not replaced. I have not seen a gauge glass give false readings due to the balls, even in the extreme conditions of riding out a typhoon for up to 5 days at a stretch.

When a glass breaks without check valves it's no big deal if you have remote actuators fitted to the shut offs but if you have to fight your way up to the glass through the heat and steam to shut the glass off some 10-30ft above you, it becomes a less than pleasant experience.

I guess what I'm trying to say is fit the damn balls.

Best Regards
Bob

Bob, I do pay attention to what you post but learning new stuff and checking my knowledge base is one of the reasons I read this forum.

The number of US Merchant Marine ships is small it is a small industry and not many vendors bother to go through the extra hassle to get a USCG Approved Stamp which is necessary to sell equipment to US Flag ships.

The list of approved equipment is available on the internet so I just tracked down one of the gauge glass manufactures.

Here is the link to the gauge glasses I found.
http://www.clarkreliance.com/site/jerguson_boilerlevel.asp

The model that has a max pressure of 750 PSI has a ball fitted to the bottom valve ONLY. Most of the steam ships I worked on had higher pressure boilers and looked more like the second style good to 1600 psi. This is what I worked on and I do not see any mention of a ball check. I also read through my old school books and some older marine engineering reference books I have. I found one with a ball in the lower valve but the text specified that the upper valve was not fitted with a ball to give indication of a gauge failure.

I have never worked on a steamship that was not equipped with chains rigged on the quick closing gauge cocks, and yes a chain could break or jamb and that is going to be a big problem.

I have seen my share of rough weather days on end. Merchant ships are much slower than the gray funnel line.

Learning something new is a good thing.

Dave, I like the bronze reflex gauge.

Regards Dan

 

[steamer]

OK I got the Appolo gage with check balls.

I made a water column for the glass, mounted the trycocks and plumbed and performed the hydro today.

Good to go

Next a proper guard. I checked into the ones listed.....man are they expensive! they cost more than the gage!

I'm going to build one this up coming week....I took some photo's so I'll post more later

Dave

 

[steamer]

Here's a photo of it mounted

It's going to work great I think. I need to insulate it, but I'll steam it once as is to check it out
I just found a 3" round bronze short in the lucky box....that and some 2.75" polycarb tubing and I'll have a nice guard.

Dave

 

[Dan Rowe]

Dave that looks good. Thanks for sending me the link to the instructions. :bow:
http://www.boilersupplies.com/gageglass/liquidlevel.pdf

With a good drawing I can now see how they work. They might have been fitted on the ships I was on no real way of telling except to read the instructions or take the valve apart.

Dan

 

[steamer]

Here we go...

That'll do!

Dave