Steam pressure Gauges:

Steam gauges usually were selected that showed pressures higher than the allowed boiler pressure. Boilers and piping systems were required to withstand one and a half times the allowed pressure; thus, if the boilers were allowed 180 psi, the gauge had to reach at least 270 psi to serve. In addition to the boat's gauges, the inspectors brought their own for hydrostatic "squeezes". If the engineer wanted to keep his license the boat's gauges had better agree with the one brought along by the inspector!
In the very early days allowed boiler pressures were very low. By the 1860's most ranged in the 100 - 150 psi range. By 1900, 200 psi became usual. Some towboats in the 1920's and 30's were allowed 300 psi.
Your gauge could have been used in any power plant in the land from a steamboat, locomotive, or sawmill to a city's water works, for all boiler users bought appliances from the same suppliers.

Frank Grimm: Alan is quite correct. I have an Ashcroft gauge that was in steam service starting about 1915. It too is graduated to 300 psi and the working steam pressure was about 150 psi. I believe that the rule of thumb is to have at least one and a half times the working pressure available on the dial. Mine has a 12" diamer dial. This gauge is from stationary service in the boiler house of the Peters Cartridge Company in Kings Mills, Ohio. It is off of a B&W stoker fired boiler. In Ohio, we too were required by the inspectors to take our boilers to one and a half times working pressure after working on the boiler shell. We too, called it a "squeeze" and in our case it was generated hydrostatically by the electric feedwater pumps with the safety valves removed and blanked or gagged. We had to hold the pressure for five minutes. The reason for hydrostatic testing (filling with ambient temperature water and compressing it with a pump) was so that in the event of failure you only got a small spurt of water and the pressure was immediately relieved. If you did it with steam (at Emery, we took pressure to 450 psi...working pressure 300 psi) any failure during the test would release the latent heat energy in the water/steam and it could be quite dangerous. Askcroft was a prolific manufacturer of quality gauges and, I believe, still is.

Ashcroft is still making gages. They are listed as as acceptable manufacturer in our design specifications and we see them used quite frequently on our projects.

Thanks Tom, & Alan for your reply to my question. My gauge is also 12 inches in diameter. The dial has black numbers & hand, on a white face. Since my Dad & Grandfather both worked on steamboats & in power houses, I guess it could have come from either one. They once worked at the American Car and Foundry Co. in Jeffersonville. Also worked at the Barney Smith Carworks in Dayton Ohio. He said they uded to catch the mail boat to Cincinnati, then catch a train to Dayton. Would come home ocassionally on weekends. This was fefore I was born in 1925. Yes I'm truly in the Gezer class now. Ha Ha Now I'm wondering if they ever used gauges of that diameter on steamboats. Thanks again, -Frank-

Frank: sounds like we may have the same type of gauge. The face on mine is 12" and the whole assembly quite heavy with a black cast iron housing. The face on mine is not white, but the surface is textured and appears to be plated with a light colored metal over the brass substrate, with black letters. I would opine that such gauges were, indeed, used on steamers. I have posted on this board before that Henry McClannahan's steam gauges were in the Behringer museum in Dovou Park outside Covington when I was a teenager. They were the property of Ellis Crawford, Henry's grandson and were about 12" in diameter with the name H. R. McClannahan clearly lettered on the face of the gauge. Henry was long time chief engineer on the CITY OF LOUISVILLE and, later, AMERICA. Ellis told me that the engineers in the old days had their own steam gauges that they carried from boat to boat. Ellis was one of my boyhood heros and still is. The current museum staff knows nothing about the steam gauges. For more info on COL see Way's Directory and my posting under Frisbie in the history portion of this web site.

We have a 12in Crosby gage that reads up to 500 lbs No engraving as to if it came from a boat, however it was conveyed to me by someone with Steamboat connections. With that said I would like to pose a question to our Cincinnati folks.

Who can give any information about the (long defunct) Schrieber (sp?) Iron Works in Norwood? They were located on Montgomery Road, the back of their plant was up to the old CL&N railroad. The plant was torn down in the mid 60's. The power plant had a rail connection to the CL&N. They generated their own electricity with one or more BULLOCK generators. I believe they had one or more SKINNER UNIFLOW stationary engines.

What type products did they manufacture and when did they go out of business?

Jim: I am on the south shore of the Ohio River and hence not well disposed to supply a difinative answer. I dunno if this is any help, but to kick things off dead center, I do have a Covington and Newport (Kentucky) City Directory of 1886. However, it DOES have a Cincinnati Business Directory within it. In that year, there was The L. Schreiber & Sons Co at 8th and Culvert Sts on Eggleston Avenue. Said company is listed under the heading "Iron Fronts for Buildings" and was billed as an "Architectural Iron Works". That location is very close to, if not next to, the, then, terminal of the Cincinnati Lebanon and Northern RR. It may still have been a narrow gauge road at that time. It would seem to lend some evidence toward that being the same firm due to the fact that the location you call out is on top of the adjacent hill, next to the same railroad and the fact that "& Sons" was part of the name in 1886...subsequent generations may well have carried the business into the mid 1960s. I spent many years working near the downtown site in what had been the Gambrinus Stock Company building, a brewery before prohibition but an R & D Laboratory when I was there at 1128 Sycamore. It is now a parking lot. The CL&N ran up the hill parallel to the present Interstate 71 and Gilbert Ave out of town NE. That hill was a real tax on the locomotives of the day and would remain so to the locomotives of today. Jim, that area of town was a deep ditch in the early days and contains thirty to forty feet or more of fill today. If memory serves, that was Deer Creek and was said to have run red with the blood and offall of the pork packing industry in the mid 1800s. It could be that when the CL&N expanded their terminal, they took the iron works property and relocated them up the hill on property that they may have owned. When I got my Stationary Engineer's License we visited the Hudepohl Brewery in the west end of Cincinnati. I don't remember if they were still making beer or not but their power house was still in operation in support of a cold storage unit. They had a number of Skinner Uniflow steam engines there operating refrigeration equipment. You could balance a nickel on its rim on the head of these engines when running and, they were so smooth when running, I could not tell which ones were running and which ones were not! Don't know where the Skinners were made but don't think it was Cincinnati.

Jim: I am on the south shore of the Ohio River and hence not well disposed to supply a difinative answer. I dunno if this is any help, but to kick things off dead center, I do have a Covington and Newport (Kentucky) City Directory of 1886. However, it DOES have a Cincinnati Business Directory within it. In that year, there was The L. Schreiber & Sons Co at 8th and Culvert Sts on Eggleston Avenue. Said company is listed under the heading "Iron Fronts for Buildings" and was billed as an "Architectural Iron Works". That location is very close to, if not next to, the, then, terminal of the Cincinnati Lebanon and Northern RR. It may still have been a narrow gauge road at that time. It would seem to lend some evidence toward that being the same firm due to the fact that the location you call out is on top of the adjacent hill, next to the same railroad and the fact that "& Sons" was part of the name in 1886...subsequent generations may well have carried the business into the mid 1960s. I spent many years working near the downtown site in what had been the Gambrinus Stock Company building, a brewery before prohibition but an R & D Laboratory when I was there at 1128 Sycamore. It is now a parking lot. The CL&N ran up the hill parallel to the present Interstate 71 and Gilbert Ave out of town NE. That hill was a real tax on the locomotives of the day and would remain so to the locomotives of today. Jim, that area of town was a deep ditch in the early days and contains thirty to forty feet or more of fill today. If memory serves, that was Deer Creek and was said to have run red with the blood and offall of the pork packing industry in the mid 1800s. It could be that when the CL&N expanded their terminal, they took the iron works property and relocated them up the hill on property that they may have owned. When I got my Stationary Engineer's License we visited the Hudepohl Brewery in the west end of Cincinnati. I don't remember if they were still making beer or not but their power house was still in operation in support of a cold storage unit. They had a number of Skinner Uniflow steam engines there operating refrigeration equipment. You could balance a nickel on its rim on the head of these engines when running and, they were so smooth when running, I could not tell which ones were running and which ones were not! Don't know where the Skinners were made but don't think it was Cincinnati.

Rule of thumb with steam gauges is that normal working pressure should be one-half the gauge's highest pressure. Thus, a 300lb gauge would be just right for a boiler normally running at 150lbs. This also puts the needle at the 12 o'clock position, so one can tell at a glance if pressure is up or down. Note: I said working pressure, good steam person doesn't lift the safeties often, you'd run at 150 lbs with safeties at 155 or 160.
At least that's what I was taught--but then our boats were a lot smaller, my Mikahala was/is 16'. Found it on sale on eBay the other day, at nearly 10x what I bought her for back in '78. I should never have let her go, I guess.
S'
David D.