Parker Steam Engines

[Old and Reliable]

Originally Posted by Richard Flanders

I'm at an obvious disadvantage and obviously have no clue of the difference between a Pelton wheel and others or that there are even others. If I remember correctly, which I may not be, that large fabricated housing has a cast wheel with cups inside that is the same as I've seen in cast housings elsewhere. I've always just called the all Pelton wheels. The drum behind the governor in the top picture has a different type of wheel inside. Very simple set of horizonal steel blades mounted on an axle.

I just looked up a Francis on Wiki: looks like that is what is in that large housing. Can't remember seeing that type when I looked inside but it's been a couple of years. That was originally driven by the wooden flume before it was switched to the inside unit. I'll dig up pics of the powerhouse turbine drum and inside wheel. I have some. The pic of the inside is looking through the turbine wheel assembly and up the flume and doesn't show the wheel well. I think that the blades may have been removed? Can't remember. Here we go: found a pic of the inside of the Francis turbine that my assistant took this past summer.

Re the boiler: I'm not seeing the jagged edges. Not sure what you consider the furnace section but the square opening in the top picture is where the wood/coal fuel went in and was burned. That chamber has a heavy grate in the bottom. For some reason it's stuffed full of short pieces of heavy railroad rail, perhaps intended as spare furnace section grating? It's much heavier than anything that would normally be used at a mine.

-- and even more telling is the (empty?) cardboard case of Seagram's 7 Crown atop the boiler- if the crew used that while tending the boiler- well, a beer and a shot is a "boiler-maker"- at least at Sully's just off Canal St.