SOOT IN THE FLUES

‘How about a price for those of us who stay more than one
day?

When you have the parade (we all like this), how about doubling
up some so it is completed in about an hour? When 5:00 o’clock
comes, don’t shut down everything but stagger some stands and
exhibits for those of us who like to hang around at night. Thanks
to those who have a dance or some music, but how about a spark
show, when safe.

‘Also, I really admire working the engines on the Baker fan,
the incline, or the ‘teeter-totter.’ Last thought: enjoy
the flea markets but go easy on size and content.

‘Again, thanks for another too short but enjoyable
season.’

TOM STEBRITZ, 1516 E. Commercial Street, Algona, Iowa 50511 sent
this letter in response to our September/October issue:’
Reading David Bakke’s account of his restoring his 65 HP Case
steam engine, it’s nice to have the wherewithal to do what he
did with the engine. Back in the 1940 ‘s a lot of good engines
were cut up. That 65 HP Case I had a tug of war with the junk man
over, and in this case I won, however it was pathetic to see all
the other good engines get cut up. Many ‘glad handers’
watched most of the engines get junked. Then after shows like Mt.
Pleasant started, they had to scour the bushes to find an engine to
show off with.

‘About the other 65 HP Case restoration, Kevin L. Rice’s
engine, we have to go back to Harry Schell of Blue River,
Wisconsin. He saved the engine over fifty years ago, which is the
reason why it’s around today.

‘Way back when, if you had one engine you were considered an
idiot. If you had two engines or more, you were a complete
imbecile!

‘You wonder how many ulterior motives there are in this
hobby today. I bought my first engine in 1944 at the age of 17. It
was a 1913, 60 HP Case, #29816. I was raised around steam, and to
own an engine was a fulfillment of a dream. Back then, as such, you
were regarded as someone gone wrong. However, the grapevine and
publications like The Farm Album emerged to show us we didn’t
stand alone. Gradually small gatherings of like interests sprang
up. These gatherings were run on a shoestring and if the bills got
paid the people involved were satisfied. However, somewhere people
followed the wrong turn and decided to get more of this and more of
that to pay for it. So at a lot of shows we have overkill.

‘I mean no disrespect for either David Bakke or Kevin Rice.
They are living in a whole different attitude environment than we
did back when.

‘Bakke’s 65 HP Case I owned for 31 years. I got it in
1949, sold it in 1980. The engine was in sound shape when I got it,
however the valve gear was noisy. I rebuilt most of that and took
the crankshaft out to put in a new crank pin. The throttle I
replaced with a brass Buckeye slide throttle. Case Company built a
bum throttle. The 60 HP Case I had, my late father put a Buckeye
slide throttle on it when he owned it years ago. The 60 HP Case had
a tapered brass valve against an iron bore, however that 1919 65 HP
Case had an all iron throttle straight bore cast iron to cast iron
fit. A poor excuse for the throttle and it leaked for years before
I got the engine.

‘The boiler of the 65 HP Case was built April 15, 1919, and
tested April 30, 1919, by the Hartford Insurance Co. The boiler
test was 247.5 lbs. and the allowable working pressure was 165 lbs.
p.s.i. The engine was built May 6, 1919, tested May 15, 1919, and
shipped from the factory on June 28, 1919 with a 40’x62’
Case thresher to Ventura, Iowa, where it ran for 18 seasons. The
engine was bought in 1937 by a friend of my father’s for $175.
My father and another friend ran this engine to its new home about
50 miles northwest. The engine had several owners. The last was a
farmer company that traded their old short smoke box 20 HP Case to
a junk man to get a newer, better engine.

‘A few years later the same junk man was back to buy the
engine again for junk.

‘I don’t know what motivates most of the steam engine
owners of today, maybe just a little bit of what impressed me from
childhood. First, a father who was a lifetime steam fan. My father
had a row of engines in the backyard in town. One time they were a
1912 25 HP single Rumely; a 1902 single Gaar-Scott Universal; about
a 1903 15-45 Case and a 13 HP single Nichols & Shepard. He
bought the Gaar-Scott for $20.00 in 1925 for the grates to use in
the Rumely. He had to block off the ends four inches to make up the
length difference. The 15 HP Case he bought for $5.00 in the
Thirties. The 13 HP Nichols & Shepard he bought in 1930 for
$5.00 also.

‘That 22 HP Gaar-Scott was my engine in the backyard.
It’s too bad that we didn’t have a few people with fat
checkbooks around after WW II ended. $1000 would have bought about
ten good engines. As for me, I was always a day late and a dollar
short!’

After our November/December issue, we received another
communication from TOM STEBRITZ, 1516 E. Commercial Street, Algona,
Iowa 50511: ‘Much has been written about boiler practice lately
in the Iron Men Album, however, let’s not go overboard and
start shaking in our boots! In the first place, anyone who can see
what they see by visual inspection, could tell if the boiler in
question would be worth the trouble to test it at all.

‘I have seen quite a number of boilers in different states
of repair and disrepair. I put flues in a number of boilers similar
to the boiler shown by Mr. Conrad Milster, especially what is
called type C Kewanee and type S Pacific. These boilers were a
3-pass type, a firebox with a combustion chamber on the back end
with a number of flues leading back to a smoke box above the
firedoor and a second stage of flues above these going back to the
smokestack. These were designed to take up as little space as
possible. They were put in schools, churches, municipal buildings,
theatres, etc. The pressure was generally two to five pounds
p.s.i..

Once installed, a lot of these boilers were ignored and never
washed out. The boilers had plugs high on the sides and on the four
corners, but none in the front end, showing all the tubes of both
passes of tubes. A lot of these boilers just sat and finally filled
with scale, wouldn’t steam and started to leak. I had a welder
I know cut through a couple of flue holes, then cut out all the 30
to 40 lower stage flues. We washed out the boiler, then he veed the
piece of flue sheet he cut, very carefully welded it back in so he
finished in the holes with a file. Then we put the new flues in. I
put some flues in a much older type C Kewanee in a church a number
of years before. It had been leaking in the combustion chamber for
a long time and it was so thin, after rolling the flues, they
wouldn’t tighten, so I told the janitor to get a welder and
seal-weld the flues. This was in the winter and this makeshift
repair got them by, as the boiler was too far gone to keep.

‘A boiler well taken care of could be good up to 50 years of
use. A traction boiler wouldn’t function at all under the
conditions described of the type C Kewanee boiler. It’s been
agreed that putting water in a hot boiler will not blow it up.
It’s generally considered a fact that the boiler in question
was ready to blow and most certainly a cup of water didn’t
cause it to explode. A number of years ago a certain railroad tried
to blow up a couple of old locomotives. They were put on a rural
siding, steamed hard, blown down so the crown sheet was bare, then
water was put in. Well, all that happened was a blue crownsheet and
bunch of foolish people!

‘A lot is made over the ultrasound tests on a boiler. Does
this give a reading of some sort on the plate or what? In the last
few years we have seen engine prices go up. I have seen ads of
$12,000 up to $15,000 and more for engines of 1902, 1903, 1905 and
later. Some tell of having ultrasound, most of these have
⁹/₃₂ inch plate in the boilers.

‘What’s the good of an ultrasound reading, say on a
crown sheet, when the stay bolts are rusted around the point near
the crown sheet and on the fireside the flange of the stay bolts is
burned off?

‘I saw a 45 Case boiler a few years ago that let go about up
to ten years ago. Four green old engineers were firing it up and as
I was told it wasn’t up to full pressure when the boiler made a
loud thump and all the water and coal and soot blew out in a big
cloud, and the would-be engineers thought that the world had come
to an end. The stay bolts in crown sheet just disconnected. More
old ⁹/₃₂ inch plate and apparently a
condition like I just described. This was not a dry crown sheet.
Had the boiler inspector put on another 10 lbs. cold water test, he
might have accomplished the same thing, not picking on the
inspector.

‘Reading some of Larry Creed’s letter, I agree about
whether or not a certain boiler shop could or would put in rivets
or threaded stay bolts. In the future I plan to build a scale 110
Case boiler and use threaded stay bolts, the boiler proper and
seams would be welded, but this ethic would not include the stay
bolts and rods. I can’t agree on what’s called modern
technology. Should you have to replace a number of weld in stay
bolts on a model boiler or a large one, you would have to butcher
the firebox plates with a cutting torch to get the stay bolts out.
Another thing, doing a cold water test and one stay bolt lets go,
the cause and effect could cause a number of stay bolts close by to
let go also.

‘On a large all-welded boiler you can find a splatter weld
head between two to three inches diameter, that would be a real
mess to clean up to replace a stay bolt modern technology!

‘More dumb technology supposed to be superior is to see
bushings welded over bare holes in a boiler. Up to 1 inch size
bushings including the threads are about ³/₁₆
inch thick. Why not fit a ³/₈ inch plate,
drilled for tapping, with a inch width area around the hole, spot
in the line with the holes in the boiler proper, weld around the
plate, then tap out the united plates and you have a job that looks
like an intelligent person did it.

‘I had a boiler maker from Des Moines, Iowa, look over my
boiler plans and I drew the boiler up with six hand holes like on
the big boiler, and I asked if they would be legal. He said
yes.

‘About Mr. Creed’s statement concerning a bad boiler in
need of repairs because of seeping or dripping stay bolts. Could be
a boiler all limed up; could be you need a cutting torch. I have
seen a number of low pressure stationary boilers leaking in
different ways, but if he is talking about a traction boiler
leaking like this, you’d better run for cover.

‘Before you consider a cold water test on, say, a traction
or portable boiler, take out all the hand hole plates and plugs and
see what the staybolts and rivet heads, especially, look like. A
marginal boiler can stand a fairly good test but, what does that
say if you don’t know what you’ve got?

‘The idea of fixing up an old boiler to steam it again is
alright if the most of the boiler is basically very sound. But, I
saw a boiler that was rebuilt that should be, hopefully, good for
100 lbs. steam at best. A number of these around don’t look too
good to me out in public, however, the original boiler is about 88
years old and has mostly ⁵/₈ inch plate.

‘About the anonymous phone caller concerning boiler
explosions: don’t hide behind the phone, come forth!

‘About the Gettysburg Railroad boiler failure, one opinion
is they were pulling hard going up a hill and apparently the
firemen weren’t watching the water glass very carefully. Could
be the hard pull raised the water in the glass. What happened was
terrible, but human failure apparently was the cause. This happened
at times years ago.

‘The railroads and the F.R.A. always took good care of the
locomotive boilers. If the pressure was 200 lbs. steam, the cold
water test might be 205 to 210 lbs. They didn’t make a habit of
trying to bust a boiler like the state inspectors try to do.

‘I would have to agree with Mr. Creed about Peter
Bouley’s comments about boilers. Mr. Bouley is, I’m afraid,
at the mercy of his insurance inspectors. Why else would you build
a scale boiler using inch tube sheets and inch back head plate? I
discussed this with a Des Moines, Iowa, boiler maker and he shook
his head. A model boiler can’t ever be compared to a large
full-size boiler in any way, because of the reduced steam and water
area, coupled with the fact that most model boilers are generally
made from ³/₈ inch plate from
¹/₃ scale and up. I am most certainly
unimpressed by the color pictures of the boiler that got red
hot.

‘It would depend on the boiler’s age, of course, but
it’s very possible that the boiler could have been looked over
to see if there were any bags in the plate. If not, the boiler
could have been washed out and the flues rolled and fired up again.
The plate being red hot went through an annealing process not to be
recommended of course, the way it happened.

‘Mr. Rhode’s copied material about boilers should
impress a number of engine owners. As for myself, the writer of
some of the would-be facts and truths I’m afraid dealt in
overkill a lot of the time. The argument that a boiler should have
an 8-10 safety factor, why not 15 or 20 or more?

‘Considering that the manufacturer’s printed
testimonials remarking how a certain engine was running yet at 10
to 11 years of age would indicate what a company considered the
life of an engine.

‘I encourage our steam engine owners to write more to fill
up the magazine, and have a lot less technical stuff. It’s
alright to know something about a boiler, at least enough to know
to get by operating one, but not to the point of overkill.

‘About your center picture, we have a middle 1880s rig
clearly visible, on the fuel box is the legend Russell & Co.
and the tailings elevator says Gaar-Scott & Company. The engine
is a firebox return flue and has it on the link valve
gear.’

And this letter comes from GARY YAEGER, 146 Reimer Lane,
Whitefish, Montana 59937. ‘Hello, I had a couple of items I
wanted to send you in case you might need fill for your column.
Since I’ve had a nice summer playing with steam, I just wanted
to share some of it with your readers.

‘Carl Mehmke called me in late August and said he was having
a plowing day at his museum east of Great Falls on September 23rd.
The 22nd was the last day of the Choteau Threshing Bee, so Austin
Monk and I decided to get up early Sunday morning and take in the
last day of that show on our way to Carl’s. The parade was over
about 3:00 p.m., so Austin and I decided to drive on through Great
Falls to see if we could be of any help to Carl. We found
everything ready for the next day, but Carl and Martha insisted we
go to dinner with them and their other guests. We then turned in,
in anticipation for the next morning.

‘I had given Carl a nice large appropriate steam whistle for
Christmas a couple of years ago on the condition that it went on
Walter Mehmke’s (Carl’s father) original 32 HP Case and
I’d get to toot it someday. Carl told me Sunday afternoon he
was putting me in charge of the engine for the next day. I was very
honored to be at the helm of Walter’s first steam engine; the
engine that paid for their farm. I met Walter in 1956 when our
family had stopped to look at his blossoming engine collection. He
and I became good friends. Walter Mehmke and John Wayne were both
heroes of mine!

‘I should have the facts in front of me before I make a fool
of myself. Off the top of my head, I think he bought the engine
secondhand from Briggs Implement in Great Falls, in 1921 for
$3200.00. I do know this engine broke most of the farmland between
Great Falls and Belt, Montana.

‘We learned on Monday that Carl was celebrating his
induction into the Steam Hall of Fame for the Early Day Gas Engine
& Tractor Association. One of ten people in the hall of fame,
Carl is the second Montanan.

Left to right: 20/70 Nichols & Shepard double, 110 Case,
Mike Yaeger taking a picture of the 32 Case and the wide wheel 75
Case plow engine.

‘I was the first one to throw a fire in an engine the next
morning. (Graham Sellers would have been proud of me. Although Carl
only furnished one match, I stole a book of them from the motel the
night before!) Besides the 1907 32 HP Case, we had the 1911 110 HP
and the wide wheel (36’ wide) 75 HP Case, as well as the 20/70
double Nichols & Shepard, fired up. The plowing went quite well
in spite of the fact that Carl had 2.5 inches of rain in his rain
gauge from a couple of days before.

‘Martha and some neighbor ladies really put on a fine meal
at noon. Anyone who went away hungry could only blame himself. The
noontime fellowship with all of the old friends and engineers, is
as enjoyable as running an engine.

‘I found an old engine picture in a photo album my wife had
borrowed from her cousin. The engine is an old pre-1900 return flue
(I believe) Gaar-Scott, belonging to my wife’s late
great-grandfather, Richard F. Waters of Odessa, Nebraska. Her
grandfather, Jefferson Davis Simpson, is sitting on the feeder of
the threshing machine, which would date the picture around 1908.
Jeff married Cecelia Waters, whose twin brother Roy is sitting on
the drive wheel of the old return flue.

‘When we had our family home for a weekend reunion in early
August, this summer, my seven year old grandson Maverik Bursch of
Spokane asked his uncle Mike Yaeger to show him how to
‘drive’ our 15 HP Case. He was doing very well steering and
wanting to learn how to be the engineer someday. I had reported a
couple of years ago in an article that Maverik was a fifth
generation steam engineer.

‘Richard F. Waters was Maverik’s great-great-great
grandfather, making Maverik, in fact, a sixth generation steam man
and Mike, a fifth generation. I’ll have to settle for only
being a third generation steam nut.

‘So much for my ‘soot.’ You girls keep up the good
work with our magazine.’

From CARL LATHROP, 108 Garfield Avenue, Madison, New Jersey
07940 comes this: ‘My interest in steam and trains and the
railroad industry is sometimes the subject of discussion when I
attend cocktail parties. 1 live in the sophisticated commuter
suburbs of New York City and I often refer to my neighbors as the
‘highly varnished’ set. The conversation usually runs to
bridge, golf and the sorry state of the Yankees. However, someone
is apt to turn to me and ask, ‘What got you interested in
running a railroad as a hobby?’

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