CHAPTER XIX

Boiler Tests in Exhibition of 1871. We Lose Mr. Allen. Importance of Having a Business Man as President. Devotion of Mr. Hope.

The next year we were not exhibitors at the Institute fair, but our boiler remained in its place and was run by the Institute. This boiler and its setting are shown correctly in theaccompanying reproductionof a drawing made about that time, except that it consisted of nine sections instead of six. At the close of the exhibition a boiler test was made by the Institute, through a committee of which Professor Thurston, at that time Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Stevens Institute, afterwards until his death Director of the Sibley College of Mechanic Arts, in Cornell University, was the chairman. Five boilers, including the Allen boiler, were tested, one on each day, in a continuous run of twelve hours. The four besides our own were all different from the boilers exhibited the year before.

A week was spent in preparation for this test. A large wooden tank was constructed, in which was built a surface condenser, consisting of a pile of sections of the Root boiler, laid horizontally, having a total of 1100 square feet of cooling surface. The steam was exhausted into the pipes which were surrounded by the cooling water, thus reversing the construction of surface condensers.

ProfessorRobert H. Thurston

ALLEN BOILER.OF80 HORSE POWERS.Area of Effective Heating Surface 810-Square Feet.Area of Grate 24-Square Feet.scale-1 inch-1 foot. Allen Engine Works.July-1872.

ALLEN BOILER.OF80 HORSE POWERS.

Area of Effective Heating Surface 810-Square Feet.Area of Grate 24-Square Feet.

scale-1 inch-1 foot. Allen Engine Works.July-1872.

Each boiler was tested by setting its damper and its steam-valve wide open, so burning all the coal that could be burned by it under its draft, and delivering freely all the steam that it made. This latter entered the condenser at the top, and the water formed by condensation was drawn off at the bottom, while the condensing water entered the tank at the bottom and was drawn offat the top, the currents of steam and water being thus opposite to each other, which was an ideal construction. The condensing water at a temperature of 45.5 degrees flowed in under the pressure in the city main and was measured in a Worthington meter, and the temperature of the overflow taken. The condensed steam was drawn off into a barrel and weighed, 300 pounds at a time, and its temperature taken. This method was an excellent one.

Not having high chimneys, no boiler had a strong draft, as shown by the coal burned per square foot of grate. Our draft was the strongest of all. Only the Allen boiler and the Root boiler gave superheated steam, and the competition between them was very close. The valve being wide open, giving a free current into the condenser, the superheat of our steam fell to 13.23 degrees Fahrenheit. Root’s superheat was 16.08 degrees.

Root’s boiler, the trial of which occupied the first day, blew steam from the open try-cock, from water at 46 degrees Fahrenheit, in sixteen minutes from lighting the fire. Next morning our boiler blew steam from water at the same temperature, in twelve minutes, and Mr. Root holding his watch could not resist the ejaculation, “Wonderful boiler!” The Allen boiler, burning 13.88 pounds of coal per square foot of grate per hour, evaporated one cubic foot of water per hour from each 17.41 square feet of heating surface. Root’s boiler, burning 11.73 pounds of coal per square foot of grate per hour, required 23.59 square feet of heating surface to evaporate one cubic foot of water per hour.

Our stronger draft, 13.88 against 11.73, accounted for 3.2 pounds of the above superior evaporative efficiency, leaving 3 pounds to be accounted for by the more rapid circulation in the Allen boiler. The great value of the inclination of the tubes was thus established. The report contains this sentence: “The Committee desire to express their appreciation of the excellent general arrangement and proportions which gave to the Allen boiler its remarkably high steaming capacity.”

The reader will observe in theplanof this boiler the pains taken to maintain as far as possible parallel currents of the heated gases through the boiler, and taking the flues off at the bottom, thus bringing all the heating surfaces at the same distance from the furnace into approximately equal efficiency.

RESULTS OF THE COMPETITIVE TRIAL OF STEAM BOILERS AT THE FAIR OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, NOVEMBER, 1871.

Name.Square Feet.Ratio ofheatingsurfaceto gratesurface.Total Weights.Ratio ofwaterprimedto waterevapo-rated.Mean Temperatures.TotalBritishthermalunits.Totalunitsperpoundofcom-bustible.ApparentEvaporation.ActualEvaporation.Equivalentevaporationof water at212° Fahr. andatmosphericpressure.Square feet ofheating surfacerequired toevaporateone cubic footof waterper hour.Coal,lbs. persquare footgratesurfaceper hour.Efficiency;actualevaporationof fueldivided bytheoretical.Gratesurface.Heatingsurface.Coal.Com-bustible.Feed.Steam.Primedwater.Injection.Feed.Water ofconden-sation.Discharge.Steam.Superheat.Flues.Perpoundof coal.Perpound ofcom-bustible.Persquarefoot ofgratesurfaceper hour.Persquarefoot ofheatingsurfaceper hour.Perpoundof coal.Perpoundof com-bustible.A.B.C.D.E.F.G.H.I.J.K.L.M.N.O.P.Q.R.S.T.U.V.W.X.Y.Z.Z. 1Z. 2Root27876¹⁄₂32.538003185.527896278960.0.45°.9445°.9458°.31143°.1334°.616°.08416°.632,751,834.3410,281.537.348.7686.092.657.348.7610.6423.5911.730.709Allen32¹⁄₄92028.55375452739670396700.0.45°.545°.563°.48154°.76330°.6313°.23345°.8746,387,827.110,246.927.388.76102.513.597.388.7610.6017.4113.880.707Phleger2360026.1280022742042819782.94645.063.2645°.6545°.6554°.38120°.83321°.060°.503°.7623,066,685.3910,143.667.268.9573.702.837.078.7010.4922.7410.130.699Lowe37³⁄₄91324.2440037053400031663.352336.656.945°.045°.054°.8131°.5319°.480°.389°.637,228,739.07210,048.247.689.1275.063.107.208.5510.4021.639.710.693Blanchard8¹⁄₂44051.812321047.510152.59855.6296.93.44°.444°.449°.49106°.14323°.750°.221°.6711,485,777.3510,964.948.249.6999.531.928.009.4111.3433.4812.100.756

The boiler had one defect, seen in thefront view, cross-section. A straight passage 2 inches wide was given to the gases between each pair of tubes.

The boilers having all had a preliminary trial during the first week, I observed the vapor arising from the exposed surface of the water in the tank, and that this unmeasured loss of heat differed considerably in the different boilers, and was enormously greatest on the trial of the Allen boiler. I said nothing, but went down early on next Monday morning and on my way bought a common tin cup about 3 inches deep and 4 inches in diameter, and secured it in one corner of the tank, immersed to a quarter of an inch below its rim, and filled even full of water. This was completed before the arrival of the Committee, and was at once approved by them. I made it my business every day to note the fall of the water level by evaporation from this cup. On the trial of the Allen boiler only the water in the cup was all evaporated, and I had to fill it again. The temperature of the water in the cup was always 8 degrees below that of the surrounding water. It was thus obvious that the evaporation from the tank was greater than the fall of the level in the cup would indicate. The Committee considered that this should be increased as the tension of the vapors. The result was that the report contained the following item: Units of heat carried away by evaporation at the surface of the tank:

The same Bulkley pyrometer was used in all the furnaces to indicate the temperature of the escaping gases. On Tuesday morning, when my boiler was to be tried, I saw that before my arrival the pyrometer had been set in the brick chimney, where the readings could be conveniently taken by a person standingon the brick surface of the boiler chamber. Its readings averaged 260 degrees Fahrenheit. I did not believe this to be true. At about half-past two o’clock, when seven readings had been taken, one each half hour, having got ready some bricks and mortar and tools, I pulled the pyrometer out and filled up the hole. I then knocked a hole in the side of the brickwork at the bottom, in front of the flue, and set the pyrometer there. The reading rose to 405 degrees, which was the temperature at which the gases then entered the flue, and averaged about 385 degrees during the remainder of the sixteen readings. Root’s average was 416 degrees, and Phleger’s (also tubular) averaged 503. Obviously the readings taken before the pyrometer was moved should have been rejected; but the boys who did this kind of work added them all together, and our average temperature is printed 345.87 degrees, giving the boiler more credit than it was entitled to by about 40 degrees. I lost a little by this operation. While I was bricking up the hole the fireman came around and told me I was spoiling his fire. When I got the figures of water evaporated and coal burned, I found that in that half hour I had only 900 pounds (three barrels) credited to the boiler, instead of 1800 pounds (six barrels) during every other half hour, being a loss of about .023 in water weighed in the barrel, 38,400 pounds, instead of 39,300 pounds, while, curiously enough, the coal burned was rather increased.

The point of interest in this incident was the fact that the gases had lost 125 degrees of heat in traversing a distance in flues and chimney of less than 20 feet. This seems difficult to believe, but they did. There was no leakage as the excellent draft clearly proved, nor any other way of accounting for the discrepancy. The length of the pyrometer tube exposed to the heated gases was the same in both positions. The heat had been lost by radiation through the brickwork. I have been waiting ever since for a chance to turn this knowledge to useful account, but it has not come yet. I will content myself with suggesting to somebody else the idea of facing the boiler setting, flues and chimney, not only outside but inside also after leaving the furnace, with white encaustic tiles, which will neither absorb nor radiate heat appreciably. This will pay in maintaining the temperature in a large degree to the top of the chimney, so increasing, perhaps doubling,the strength of the draft. An enormous amount of heat must be lost through the extended surface of the brick boiler setting. It is always observed that the hotter a boiler-room is kept the greater the efficiency of the boiler becomes. This is a slight indication of the great gain which might be effected by the plan I propose.

Before this boiler trial we had lost Mr. Allen. He had conceived the idea of the pneumatic riveter and the high-speed air-compressor to furnish this riveter with power. In the latter he utilized the inertia of the reciprocating parts, including two pistons, the steam and the air piston. This he did with my cordial consent, and indeed there was nothing patentable about that feature anyway. Mr. Allen thus became the originator of the important system of pneumatic riveting, in its two methods, by percussion and by pressure. Mr. Allen sold out his stock in the engine company to Mr. Hope and Mr. Smith, and built a shop in Mott Haven for the manufacture of the riveters and compressors. He took the boiler in the fair in part payment, and sold it directly to a party who had erected a wood-working shop at some point on the Harlem River.

The Croton water which had been fed to the boiler contained no lime, but some sediment. Mr. Allen had the boiler taken down and brought to our shop for inspection and cleaning. I determined to improve the opportunity to observe the effect of the circulation on the deposit of sediment, and the result of the examination proved most interesting. Each inclined tube had been provided at the end with a brass plug, by removing which it could be cleaned by the running out of the water which it contained. This had not yet been done.

I took out the tubes on one side of one section, ten in all, five over the furnace and five behind the bridge wall, and planed them in two longitudinally, and had the following revelation: The tubes over the furnace were entirely empty. In those back of the bridge wall a deposit of sediment appeared, only about an inch deep in the first one, and increasing regularly to a depth of 18 inches in the last one, which was not the tube receiving the feed-water. So the water fed into the last tube of each section deposited its sediment most largely in the first tube it reached,in which the circulation was least active, and had deposited it all before reaching the tubes over the furnace. The remaining long tubes were then cleaned, the tubes cut in two were replaced by new ones, and the boiler delivered to Mr. Allen. The next stage in its history was very funny. The purchaser, to save the cost of Croton water, fed his boiler from the Harlem River, and within a month it was found to be filled solid with salt. What was done about it I never heard.

I thought I could sell the boilers where, as in New York City, they could be fed with water free from lime, and I made a few such sales, but the inspiration which led me to employ the second drum for superheating the steam had deserted me.

I came to the conclusion that by making the first drum a large one, and not extending the nipples into the drum to trap a puddle of water, as I had done, I could superheat the steam in one drum. That was a blunder. I had underestimated the furious circulation, which carried a large amount of spray into the drum. I was misled by the quiet position of the water-level, as always shown in the glass gauge. Instead of superheated steam, I found the boiler to give very wet steam. That fault, of course, I could have remedied by returning to my first design. But I was discouraged by other things. The first, of course, was the impossibility of removing scale by any mechanical means. The most serious discouragement was a cracked header. The inclined tubes, on any plan for their use that I could then design, made cast-iron headers necessary. I had taken great pains to obtain perfect castings, making them of the best iron in baked molds in iron flasks, of uniform thickness, ⁵⁄₈ in., and ³⁄₄ in. where threaded, with cores held perfectly central and remarkably well vented, and felt that I could rely on their soundness; but this defect showed that I could not. So reluctantly I abandoned the manufacture of the boiler.

I believe, however, that there is yet a future for the inclined boiler tube, with independent circulation in each tube, the whole made entirely from forged steel; and that better results will be obtained from it than any other form of boiler has as yet given. I have been told by Chief Engineer Melville that all water admitted to the boilers in the United States Navy is made pureenough for pharmaceutical purposes. If this can be done in the navy, where sea water and the mud of harbors have to be used, it can be done anywhere. Cooling towers make it practicable to return all water to the boiler even from non-condensing engines. Then only the waste needs to be made good, and any water can be purified for this purpose. Oil or grease with the feed-water is readily avoided. Only electrolysis remains to be provided against, which can be done by avoiding the use of any alloy of copper in contact with the water. We may then have boilers of the most durable character and safe to carry any desired pressure.

The following incident near the close of my experience in Harlem would be too ridiculous to print except for its consequence. One day Mr. Smith sent me word that he would like to see me in his office. When I entered he asked me, “What do you pay for the castings of your governor arms and balls?” Of course he knew perfectly well, as he had the bills and the books, but that was his way of introducing the subject. I replied, “Forty cents a pound.” He held up both hands in affected amazement, and exclaimed, “Forty cents a pound! Well, sir, I can assure you of one thing, no more of this company’s money is going to be squandered in that way.” I overlooked his insulting language and manner, and said quietly, “Are you sure, Mr. Smith, that you have all the information you need to form a correct judgment in this matter?” “I am sure,” he replied, “what the market price is of copper and tin, and that I can get castings made from our own metal at a price that will bring the cost to not more than 25 cents a pound.”

“This, then, I presume, is all you know about the subject,” I said, “and you ought to know a great deal more, which I will tell you. It is necessary that I can rely upon getting a pure copper and tin alloy, in the proportion known as gun-metal, on account of its strength, its rigidity, and its wearing qualities. The latter is of especial importance, because the governor joints are in continual motion under the weight of the heavy counterpoise. Experience shows that this purity cannot be relied upon where it is possible that any inferior metal can become mixed with this alloy in even the smallest proportion. This for us, notmaking our own castings, must be wholly a matter of confidence.

“Another risk must be avoided, that is, of getting bad castings. The castings must not have the least imperfection. The time lost, through finding defects that make it necessary to reject arms after more or less work has been put on them, would soon wipe out all the little gain you look for; as these castings, at 40 cents a pound, only cost about five dollars a set, as an average of all the sizes.

“I made a careful study of this subject when I commenced the governor manufacture about fifteen years ago, and found David Francis, who had a small gun-metal foundry on Vestry Street, to be just the man I wanted. No inferior metal ever goes into his place. He enjoyed the entire confidence of manufacturers. He has made my governor arms and balls ever since. I have never had a bad casting from him, and always got the pure metal, and have paid him the same price that everybody pays him for small castings. I consider the security that I have had respecting this metal to have been fundamental to the great success of my governors, and that I would be crazy to make any such change as you propose.”

He made no reply, and I left him, supposing my statement to have been perfectly satisfactory. What was my amazement when, a few days after, he informed me that he had made a contract with a brass molder on Rose Street for casting our governor arms, “subject to your approval, sir,” and he asked me to visit the place and see what its facilities were.

I told him I would go, but that my position on the subject was already well known to him. I found the place on a little lane, and that the business done in it was making brass castings for plumbers. The proprietor told me he had never made gun-metal castings, but he could make any kind of composition, and I could rely on getting them of just the metal I furnished him.

I reported to Mr. Smith that such an arrangement would be ruinous, that his plan of furnishing the metal was most unbusinesslike. “What do you know about business?” he shouted with a sneer. “I know,” said I, “that if you should propose this plan to any well-informed, practical man, he would laugh in yourface, and tell you if you wanted to ruin your business this would be as good a way as any to do it.” He replied, “That is not the question, sir; the only question is, will you, or will you not, approve the contract I have made?” “I will not,” I replied, and walked out of his office.

A few days after I received a note from Mr. Hope, asking me to call on him. I called next day, and he told me that Mr. Smith had been to see him, with a bitter complaint of my insubordination and defiance of his authority, which he would not endure, and he asked me to tell him what the trouble was about. I told him substantially as above related. “Is that all?” said he. I assured him that it was all the trouble that I knew of. Mr. Hope replied, “I cannot express my amazement at his interference with your management. That must be absolutely entrusted to you, and he ought to see it. He is a rational man and I can easily show him his error, and that youmusttake the stand you have done. I don’t think you will have any more trouble.”

I did not hear again from Mr. Hope for a fortnight, during which time I had no occasion to meet Mr. Smith. Finally a letter came from him, telling me that I must prepare for the worst; he had exhausted all his efforts on Mr. Smith, and found him absolutely immovable, declaring that I must go, I was of no use there, anyway. Mr. Hope said he told him his conduct was outrageous and suicidal. If I went, that I would be the end of the business. He snapped his fingers at that, saying, “Mr. Goodfellow can make the engines, and I can sell them; what more do you want?” He declared that no business could succeed unless the will of the president was law. They had several very disagreeable conferences, which Mr. Smith always closed by saying, “Repay me my investment in this company,” which he figured at $24,000, “and I’ll give you my stock.” He had announced to Mr. Hope his determination to call a meeting of the directors to discharge me, and as he had a majority of votes, having some time before given to each of his two sons qualifying shares and had them elected members of the board of directors, he held the power in his hands to do it.

Directly after, I received a copy of a notice of a regular meeting of the board, convened strictly according to law. I could see noray of light. The night before the meeting I walked the Third Avenue bridge half the night. The meeting was called to order by Mr. Smith at the appointed hour. Mr. Hope was absent. Mr. Smith said Mr. Hope had sent word to him the day before that he might be detained, but if so would come up on the next boat, which ran hourly, and asked Mr. Smith to wait that time for him.

So the meeting was adjourned for an hour, when Mr. Hope arrived.

Mr. Smith prefaced the resolutions discharging me from my position as superintendent and electing Mr. Goodfellow in my place, by quite an oration, setting forth the solemn sense of his Christian duty which left him no alternative, and the necessity of proper subordination in any business, if it was to be successful, and the especially aggravated character of my offense, and the demoralizing nature of my example.

He was about to put the question on the adoption of the resolutions, when Mr. Hope said, “Before you put this question to vote, Mr. Smith, I would like to say a word. I have concluded to accept your offer. Here is my certified check for $24,000 to your order, and I demand from you the transfer to me of the stock in this company standing in your name and the names of your sons.”

When the Smiths were gone (they left by the next boat) Mr. Hope and I sat down to confer on the business of the company. When these matters were concluded, I said to him, “Mr. Hope, if you had determined to make this grand proof of your confidence in the engine and in myself, why did you not tell me sooner, and save my wife and myself a great deal of distress?”

“My dear fellow,” he replied, “I did not know till this morning that I should be able to do it. That is why I was late.”

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