A SELF- ACTING WATER GAUGE FOR STEAM BOILERS WITH A REGULATOR FOR THE FEED
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Thomas at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents,' with his Petition, on the 4th January
1860.
I, EDMUND THOMAS, of Saint Mellons, in the County of Monmouth, Cord
wainer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "A SELF-
ACTING WATER GAUGE FOR STEAM BOILERS WITH A REGULATOR FOR THE FEED," to
be as follows, and as is set forth and illustrated in the sectional Drawing here-
unto annexed.
.. The subject of the said Invention is an apparatus or machine intended to
prevent the possibility of explosion of steam boilers, and it may be described
as a water gauge or indicator, to be self-acting by means of a float within the
boiler attached to a piston working in a pipe, the lower part of which is formed
into a syringe to be steam-tight descending into the boiler, and which piston
and float are connected by lever rods (to be placed externally, and to work
through loops), with a regulating air-tight valve communicating with the feed
or supply pipe of the boiler for the purpose of regulating the supply of water
to the boiler through the feed pipe, so that a sufficient quantity of water in the
boiler may always be ensured, and the possibility of explosion from deficiency
of water prevented; and the Invention is so constructed as to give warning by
means of an external whistle fixed at the top of the pipe enclosing the piston
and acted upon by means of steam, which the descent of the piston allows to
escape through apertures in the syringe or lower part of the pipe as soon as
the supply of water in the boiler has fallen to a certain point.
The Drawing represents the head of the boiler with the construction of the
Invention in and outside the boiler.

page_text: Figure No. 1 represents the tube of the boiler; 2, the boiler; 3, the pro-
tecting rods for the float. These rods are intended to guard against the piston
being drawn aside, which, with locomotive boilers when travelling on a curve,
would cause over friction and damage in the working of the piston and render
it liable to be drawn aside, and to obviate thesc consequences. the connecting
and external rods are placed. The float will by this means move as required
without drawing the piston aside, as the lower end of the piston reaches below
the joint where the connecting rod of the float is joined to the piston, leaving
room for it to work easily either way; No. is the water line; No. 5, the
float, which is required to be sufficiently heavy to work downwards and carry
the other parts of the apparatus, all of which hold connection with the float,
directly or indirectly; 6, the piston; 7, the pipe; 8, the whistle; 9, the rod
connecting the piston with the lever rods outside the boiler; 10, the lever rods
descending to the feed regulator; 11, the fulcrum of the lever; 12, loops for
'the rods to work through; 13, the case of the regulating valve; 14, the regu-
lator. The regulator is to rise to such a heighth above the feed pipe inside
the case as will leave the float to descend, drawing the piston first, below the
bighest aperture, that the escape or rush of steam may indicate danger by
sounding the whistle; and as the water in the boiler becomes further exhausted,
the float drawing the piston secondly, below the lowest aperture, so that more
steam rushes into the pipe, giving a fuller sound to the whistle, shewing the in-
creasing danger, and which will be further manifested by the depression of the
upper portion of the piston rod, that part of the rod which is above the pipe being
of the same admeasurement at its greatest heighth as the distance which the float
has to descend in the boiler from the water line to the tube, and thus the Inven-
tion will indicate the slightest variation in the quantity of water; No. 15, the
feed pipe, shewing the valves raised. The apparatus is to be placed as near to the
middle of the boiler as the position of the feed or supply pipes will permit, and
so that the lowest rods shall be perpendicular for easier working. The water
gauge or indicator can be worked, if so required, without a regulator for the
feed, and in that case no external connecting rods would be wanted, and the
piston rod would not be required to reach to the outside of the boiler. The
apparatus is also capable of being applied to any description of steam boiler
without a tube by substituting a knob at the top of the piston rod, or making
the top end of the rod larger than the hole at the top of the syringe part of
the pipe.