September 1886
Four years after this magazine was launched, the editors reviewed the latest improvements to industrial boilers, beginning with the Backus furnace (Figure 1).
1. The Backus furnace.
“This furnace is provided with a brick arch placed just back of the fire-doors, that is intended to deflect the currents of air that are admitted through the doors, downward against the fire, instead of allowing them to rise and strike the shell of the boiler, which would chill the combustible gases and render a perfect combustion impossible, from the fact that the water in the boiler is evaporating at a temperature of from 212 to 350 degrees, whereas the gases required some 120 degrees to consume them. This arch becomes highly heated by the fire beneath, so that the moment the fresh air from without strikes the brick, it is heated to so high a temperature that it instantly flashes into flame when it comes in contact with the combustible gases as they rise from the coal.”
This may explain my inability to keep my outdoor BBQ lit and my tendency to char an otherwise good steak.
September 1907
Today’s computer-assisted design tools and CNC precision manufacturing capabilities may tempt us to discount the excellent manual machining abilities of journeyman craftsmen a century ago. Here’s how POWER reported on the results of an annual inspection of an Allis-Chalmers reciprocating engine one hundred years ago.
“[A]fter nine and a half years of service running 20 hours a day at 80 revolutions per minute, [the inspection of the] engines installed at the power house of the South Side Elevated Railway Company, of Chicago [Figure 2], indicated that the amount of wear in the 64-inch low-pressure cylinders of the 26 and 54 by 48-inch Allis Chalmers cross-compound machines constituting this equipment measured the thickness of one sheet of paper sidewise and two papers top and bottom, using paper sheets of from 0.010 to 0.011 of an inch thick. The measurements were taken on the No. 2 engine, which is one of the four units earliest installed. The cylinder was opened under the direction of the chief engineer. The same steel gage was used which was made when the engines were erected. Furthermore, the original bullrings and packing rings are still in use in this cylinder.
2. Allis-Chalmers horizontal heavy-duty engines at South Side Elevated Railway Plant, Chicago.
“In this connection it is interesting to note that current has never been off the bus-bars at this station since it was first put into operation.”
I know several plant managers who would be ecstatic to have their plant perform as well.
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