The Steamboating Forum

Hi,

I like the idea of the the still column ! It allows me to use a larger sight glass and the ability to spread the try cocks out further.

Thanks !!

jon

Do be careful that the stilling column accurately reflect the bottom of the glass; I lost a boiler tube once due to this problem. Keep the bottom gage glass connection at the same level as the bottom connection to the drum. The top of the stilling column, on the other hand, can connect to the top of the drum w/o issues.

- Bart

Hi Bart,

My tubes will be coming in at an angle into the bottom area of the 8" drum. Clearly they will not be on the lowest point in the drum but somewhat up the "sides". If I understand you correctly my low water point should be above where those tubes penetrate the drum ? I will be using all schedule 80 iron, will that make the system a little more forgiving than the copper tubes you are using ?

jon

Sorry; what I meant was that the connection for the gage glass needs to be at the same height (or higher) than the bottom connection of the stilling column; otherwise you can get a false reading of water when there really isn't any. I'll try to provide a picture. Note that this doesn't matter for the upper connection, which handles steam normally, but the bottom one matters.

- Bart

He means the same height or higher than the red dashed line (unlike the glass in the drawing depicts)

Exactly; thank you!

Note how the gage faithfully would record the water level in the column - which doesn't reflect the water level in the boiler when the level drops below the bottom drum connection.

- Bart