Year: 1871

The Steam Boiler Makers Benevolent Association held special meeting in New York to inquire into the cause of explosions. John Mcbride Chair man, characterized the present sys- tenn of boiler-making and inspection unwise and unsafe. No man should be a boiler-inspector who is not practical boiler-maker. The durability and strength of the material ordered in boil CTS are too often sacrificed to cheapness. He himself had often seen it so bad that he thought it was wrong to put such 8 sheet in, but he could say nothing. The boiler of the Westfeld was not fit to run, it was so old. Then the system of test ing by hydrostatic pressure is injurious, for every year that it is done it strains the iron to its utmost limit, tears the seams apart, and then, if it com mences to leak, they put in a short patch, perhaps an eighth of an inch thick, which stops the leak, and does not in the least strengthen the boiler.

 MT. Sullivan, an old boiler-maker from Massachusetts and Maine, had often been told by engineers, when he went to repair boiler in ship, that he need only patch it enough to last them that one trip, especially if they had a pros porous trip in prospect, after which an- other patch would have to be put on. It was reasonable to suppose that the iron on both sides of the fracture must be bad. He had looked at the boiler of the Westfeld, and believed that it eX- ploded, not from want of water, but on account of it's age. The iron appeared to have been, when first manufactured for the sheet, bent over where it was burst out, and did not crack as it would have done had the iron been defective.

 A boiler maker and repairer present interposed that it is sometimes as much the fault of incapable engineers, as boil CT inspectors, as general thing, were not conversant with all the parts of a the weak points. In regard to the Vest the boiler blew up. When boiler has been in use eight or nine years, it is the inside lining that first gives way, usually, but he found in this case it was the back head of the boiler which gave way and tore the inside lining. He consid- cred the accident, therefore, the fault of the operators.

 Michael Donohue also thought a boil CT inspector should be 8 boiler-maker, and not merely an engineer or machinist. The talk about patches was all nonsense. The boiler is made up of patches. You surely would not rip up ships deck to put in new boiler every time it needed Strengthening. It must be repaired with patches. Any good boiler-maker can examine boiler and with his hammer detect it's weak points with less difficulty and less detriment to the boiler than by hydrostatic pressure.

 Peter H. Donohue of Brooklyn, dis agreed fatly with the views of all the experts in the Westfeld boiler examin- ation. They all say it blew out at the side. l believe, said he, that the boiler gave way in the braces at the back end, or tap bolts, because it blew out in a horizontal line at the front of the boat. The consequence of these braces giving way was that there was not enough strength on the front in the tap bolts to sustain that fiat surface on the back end of the boiler. In one place in that boiler there is a space of 99 square inches without 8 bracel l never saw so much space in my life, said he, between braces on boiler, as l saw on that boat. don't blame the engi- neer. MT. Matthews IS called hrst- class engineer, but he is not a first-class boiler inspector. Neither he nor any other boiler inspector ever goes right into the man-hole to see where the boil CT has corroded and is weak, for it is the interior of the boiler that is first affect ed. In this inquest they will find out that it was the fault of the boiler-maker There are pins run through the braces to hold them which ought always to be split at the end, so that it can be forced apart after being driven in, and hold the brace firmly, and now I have seen g pin in the boiler of the Westfeld that never was split. No boiler inspector il he did his duty, would allow this. The boiler again was too old to bear pres sure of 40 pounds.

 The meeting adjourned, after a reso lution that boiler-makers alone could properly test a boiler.