The 'sicle' that got away!!

[Richard Flanders]

The safety valves were, I think, steam. If I could remember for sure exactly where I found them I could make a better guess. A lot of old mines had wood fired boilers that either directly drove or drove a compressor to drive pumps, saw mills and drills. I'll get you the settings next trip out there, which will be soon. I've found hundreds of those over the years; these were just all in the same spot and begged to be collected. I'll take a pic of my coolest brass apparatus off a steam system that I couldn't resist; it's hanging in the basement rafters. I also have a lot of the glass level tubes and the valves assemblies that hold them + a very cool tool designed to cut the tubing to length - very cool. It works too. Close on the tools in #9 - they do make a core. It's a set of punches, I think for belting, such as on conveyors. Every punch will push out the plug on the next biggest size, which keeps them from getting plugged when you're punching multiple holes on thick belting, and they store nicely when nested. I still use them occasionally; they work well on leather if I clean and sharpen the punching end. You likely know that the nickeled pump behind these punches is for the old lanterns, which are all scattered all over at the old mines. Not sure on the vacuum tube; there's a bunch of them out there; I'll look. Two of what you see in the Dundee crocks(my grandmothers)are light bulbs. No one knows what the 'pressure cooker' in #5 is ???