The photograph shows the arrangement for dealing with the inspection plug that is situated in the lower portion of the smokebox tube plate. It comprises a spanner and bar and, in this view, the tool is positioned to screw the plug in. To unscrew, the bar is taken to the opposite side of the boiler, inserted into the spanner and rotated anti-clockwise so that the spanner portion bears down against the smokebox surround and, therefore, does not lift
The boiler that I rebuilt/repaired for my Fowler road roller, number 16771 of 1926, had its first major outing at the Maitland Steam Festival in 1997, and has now clocked up 500 hours of cumulative steaming. To retain accurate information, I keep an operator’s log that, among other things, gives dates, times and locations of each steaming event.
Over the life of the boiler, there have only been two independent boiler in
