Aha! See? Further unclearness. My wheel is on the starboard side so pushing forward rotates it counter clockwise viewed from inside the boat. (Where I am, most of the time!)

And my partner has made it clear that pushing forward should make the bow turn to port.

Hmm. Now I'm not sure if I have gained anything. Let's see. First, there is no clock wise or counter clock wise. When I am sitting and facing the bow seated on the starboard side of the engine, I am looking at the wheel edge on. I am holding the top spoke in my right hand. The only motion will be aw...

O.K. troops. Here's one you can chew on. I am building a new steering system for Folly. The old one was horrible in several ways including that it didn't work. A fatal flaw. The new wheel will be along side the engine such that the axis is athwartship. That is, the top of the wheel will be pushed fo...

Huh! What a variety of methods. When I shut down for more than a few days, I do a blow down at fairly high pressure to get most of gunk out. Then let things cool down to twenty pounds or so and then open the blow down and leave it open. That way the boiler is stone dry. I have already closed all of ...

That is a thought. 'Though I am an enthusiastic fireman and all too often get to hear the safety pop. It lifts right at 150 by the present gauge. Part of the temptation is that the present 200 psi gauge is liquid filled and I have designs of putting it at the feed water pump output where the damping...

I like that explanation Ron.

In my case, any green horns on board will see the gauge well past 12 o'clock when I'm at 100 psi and think we are really going places.

Thanks, Fred. I wonder why? Must be some reason. Traditions often come from some previous bad experience. Sometimes advances in technology have made them less applicable. Some times they are based on nothing much at all. Sometimes they can save you a lot of grief! For now, I'll use my 160 gauge with...

I have two gauges to chose from for my boiler pressure. My safety is set for 150 psi. I run anywhere from 100 to near the pop point in use. The existing one is a rather prosaic looking 200 psi unit and the one I am considering installing is 160 psi. The 160 unit is a much nicer looking unit but I am...

My blow down piping is all steel as it discharges above the water line and clears the gunnel slightly. No hose involved. My question is this. How large should the blow down piping and valve be? I have a 33 square foot VFT and the boiler penetration is 1 1/2" as is the quick opening valve. It then ne...

The boiling point of fairly pure water drops to just under 200 degrees at 7000 feet. Doesn't seem like much but if the hot well temp was up near the limit of your feed water pump's ability to deal with vaporization on the suction side, it might cause some problems.

I dunno. Nothing new about that!