# More Powerhouse history



## Phil DeBlanc (May 29, 2010)

While I'm cheating just a bit with this not truly being electrical, thousands of these worked around the clock in the powerhouses of the world in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

This Taylor mercury vacuum gauge was manufactured in Rochester NY in the 1800s. Taylor no longer exists after 150 years of making instrumentation and electrical and pneumatic process control equipment. When I stumbled onto this gauge it was laying on a scrap pile headed for a dumpster on the way to a landfill. As found it was coated with the standard of the time flat black paint with only the glass uncoated. Someplace along the line of time in history it had been the trend to keep engineers busy by having them paint everything that wasn't moving with flat black paint.

I aborted the trip to the landfill for this gauge, and invested about 50 hours of time into cleaning it up and returning it as nearly as I could to the day it left Taylor's factory on Ames St in the 1800s.

The casting on the bottom of the unit is a mercury trap. Its function was to prevent mercury from entering the steam system in the event of a failure of the glass column in the vacuum gauge. The trap also allowed the mercury to be collected and returned to service in the column.


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## uleevets (Apr 23, 2011)

Started my powerhouse career in a plant that was started in 1888 and had 6 T.G.'s', seen several just like it and still functioned tell the flood of '08 killed the plant.(all painted black to match the panel boards.)


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## Wirenuting (Sep 12, 2010)

That's a good find.


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## johnsmithabe (May 3, 2011)

funny!!!


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## dmxtothemax (Jun 15, 2010)

A nice bit of history,
Perhaps donate it to a museum or trade school,
Where it can remind people of there history.


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## piperunner (Aug 22, 2009)

Well we enjoy the old pictures keep it up good stuff at least no one can bitch or complain about what your showing .

This is better than looking at someones tool pouch or there sawzall !

And its interesting to see what we had back then !:thumbsup:


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## Phil DeBlanc (May 29, 2010)

dmxtothemax said:


> A nice bit of history,
> Perhaps donate it to a museum or trade school,
> Where it can remind people of there history.


I hope the museum and tradeschool situation in the land of the upside down wrong side drivers is superior to what exists here. We've recently lost a couple fine museums of machine tooling in the US for want of funding.

As to donating to museums, that too has become a nasty issue. Museums over time fall away from their original intent as new hands come to operate them, and most donated objects get "deascentioned", a fancy word for sold off so we can buy some crap with the money. I don't much go for that way of doing things.

Fortunately I'm blessed with a young man who is very interested in how power houses and stationary engines worked, he collects engines as a hobby, and he will be getting the majority of the collection some day. I'll be comfortable knowing hundreds of hours of scavenging and restoring will remain cared for into the next generations.


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## Phil DeBlanc (May 29, 2010)

piperunner said:


> Well we enjoy the old pictures keep it up good stuff at least no one can bitch or complain about what your showing .
> 
> This is better than looking at someones tool pouch or there sawzall !
> 
> And its interesting to see what we had back then !:thumbsup:


I could post up pictures of my 1965 vintage Sawzall, it still works. I have a tool pouch from around the same time, and a 1964 Kline electrician's clawhammer with a steel handle too. Maybe I should post up some pics of shop made equipment from back before some large manufacturers started making it. 

Where did I put the pictures of the wire feeder made from a pair of gardentractor tires and a gearbox?


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## piperunner (Aug 22, 2009)

Phil DeBlanc said:


> I could post up pictures of my 1965 vintage Sawzall, it still works. I have a tool pouch from around the same time, and a 1964 Kline electrician's clawhammer with a steel handle too. Maybe I should post up some pics of shop made equipment from back before some large manufacturers started making it.
> 
> Where did I put the pictures of the wire feeder made from a pair of gardentractor tires and a gearbox?



Well ok lets put some old tools up .:thumbsup:


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