Good Ole Mills Steamer

EzzyT

Went to look at this huge  church that is having some issues with the system and this old beauty was sitting in her original spot.

pecmsg

Are you going to bring her back to life?

EzzyT

@pecmsg no there’s a Weil McLain 888 there which I have a feeling is to big along with several issues that need to be addressed.
I will be taking the doors if they have do the work that I am proposing 

Jamie Hall

Th efficiency may not have been that great...

but

That old girl would never, ever have given up. Long after you and I are gone, she would still have been steaming along.

Mad Dog_2

Love it...Mad Dog 🐕 

EBEBRATT-Ed

That is a #42 which the "newer" #44 replaced I believe. That I would guess could be 1930s

All those "Mills" boilers with the top and bottom headers were very efficient due to their down draft design. 80% or so would be easy to obtain.

Problem is it is probably massively oversized.

We used to pull the two bottom return headers off clean the muck out and re install them with new nipples. It's quite a job to do that and I did more than I care to admit.

The other problem is the cement and rope between the section would degrade and fall out causing air to leak into the combustion chamber lowering the efficiency.

One advantage they had that Smith used to tout is if one section got cooked or leaked you could cut the supply nipple and two return nipples to the affected section and remove the nipples and put pipe plugs in the headers and continue running the boiler with one less section.

Don't know what size the old steam main coming off the boiler header is but it looks to be 6" screwed i am guessing which also shows the age of the boiler

STEAM DOCTOR

@EBEBRATT-Ed can you please explain for the uninformed? What are top and bottom headers? 

ScottSecor

The Mills Series certainly lasted a long time. I do not miss the mud drum nipples one bit.

If memory serves, most if not all of the ones we serviced had mud drums (two) for the return side and a supply header for the supply side. Not sure I have seen a Mills boilers with that type of supply piping (steam or hot water).

This might help explain the headers I am referring to.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@STEAM DOCTOR

Looking at the pic @ScottSecor shows the headers. Smith claimed that each section is an 'individual boiler "which it is. Look at it this way all the sections are connected to each other by an external header and not by internal boiler passage ways.

The only difference is their larger boilers #44, 4500,6500 etc are as the picture shows above.

The smaller boiler like the old 24 & 34 &350 instead of the boiler have two split sections (a right and a left) as the pic shows (they were often referred to as Pork chop sections) the smaller 24 & 34 & 350 had 1 section and 1 nipple on the top header that went into the bottom of the top header.

Smith refers to them as steam drum or return drum. They are also referred to as headers, mud legs etc.

retiredguy

The rear section on the Smith 350/3500 weighed about 800 lbs and the front section was a few lbs lighter. Putting one of those boilers together by hand was a good days work and only for the young and strong. The largest one had 14 sections

Erin Holohan Haskell

For all of our history lovers, here's a circa-1929 catalog from H.B. Smith: https://heatinghelp.com/assets/documents/H.B.Smith-BoilersRadiators-No1444-1929.pdf

ScottSecor

@Erin Holohan Haskell thank you for posting. I noticed most of the larger boilers (commercial) appear to have the headers I am used to seeing. I still know of a few in operation near me.

EBEBRATT-Ed

In Western, Ma every building (or so it seemed) had one of those boilers. The old Smith foundry was located about 10 miles from where I sit. Smith had this area locked up tight for probably 70 years or more.

retiredguy

Brings back good and bad memories. I built so many of the 350, 450, and 650 boilers that I could almost build them while sleeping. And yes, in my area of Pennsylvania, almost every building had 1, 2, or 3 of them producing hot water or steam.

Mad Dog_2

Retired guy..any old pictures?  Mad Dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

I remember Noel Murdough showing me pictures of the boilers he ran at Colby Sawyer College in NH...They was Biggens like them Too...Old HB  Smiths. Mad Dog 🐕 

Intplm.

Erin Holohan Haskell said:

For all of our history lovers, here's a circa-1929 catalog from H.B. Smith: https://heatinghelp.com/assets/documents/H.B.Smith-BoilersRadiators-No1444-1929.pdf

As a lay historian I looked through this entire manual. I haven't seen this since I don't know when?

What drew me in was the opening letter. The intro was great. We don't see that type of welcome on an owners manual any more.

This was a great look back. Thanks @Erin Holohan Haskell for sharing.

P.S. I was born too late in life.

Mad Dog_2

Gorgeous scientific & Mechanical artistry...Mad Dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

The way some guys are "Car guys," I'm a boiler guy....Mad Dog 🐕 

retiredguy

When I retired I gave all my paperwork to the next guy.

EBEBRATT-Ed

When I was in school in 71 we went on a field trip to the H B Smith Boiler Foundry it was still in operation in Westfield at that time. Walking inside was like going back to the 1800s. Hotter than hell, more noise than you can imagine big machines running with big flat open belt (with no guards). When you were in there the only place you wanted to go was out.

Occasionally when we needed a boiler in a hurry and none of the Smith distributors (there were two in Springfield) didn't have one they would call the factory and we would pick it up over their.

I don't know the reason it was shut down. Maybe EPA or OSHA but it's all gone now. I think it ran into the 80s

Smith wrote a book around 1961 (think it was the 100th anniversary) that you can find in used bookstores etc. I used to have a couple but tossed them out. I forgot the name...... but it was all about the history of HB Smith

EBEBRATT-Ed

This was from 2009

WESTFIELD - H.B. Smith Co. will soon stop making boilers at its Westfield factory after 156 years in business.

"We're just suffering from the times," said company chief operating officer Wayne R. Walker.

"Of course it was a very difficult decision all the way around. The company has been an anchor in the Westfield community. It's painful for everybody. It wasn't an easy decision," Walker said.
Brothers Henry B. Smith and Edwin Smith purchased an old stove works and warehouse on Main Street in 1853. The Smith brothers wanted to make use of the nearby turning basin for the old Northampton and New Haven Canal and a railroad track.

Now, H.B. Smith has 42 employees at its manufacturing plant at 47 Westfield Industrial Park Road near Exit 3 on the Massachusetts Turnpike, Walker said. Twenty-seven work in manufacturing, and the other 15 are clerical and support staff.

Walker said he doesn't yet know how many of those employees will lose their jobs.

H.B. Smith machines cast-iron boiler parts, makes other parts for boilers and assembles boilers, he said. The boilers are used in residential and commercial buildings.

"We're not closing the company itself as an entity," Walker said. "We have some work to do, and we'll see how that proceeds between now and March."

Walker said H.B. Smith will also be working over the next few months to bring in work that will allow it to make use of its factory and its employees, perhaps machining cast-iron parts or boiler parts for another company.

If that happens, Walker said H.B. Smith will keep as many employees is it can. Walker said there also might be some positions open outside of the facility.

H.B. Smith might also look to license its name to another manufacturer.

"There may be ways that we can keep the company's name alive," he said. "We might license the brand."

H.B. Smith's only customer was Westcast, a unit of Westfield's Mestek Inc., Walker said. He said the companies are separate entities though. Mestek manufactures heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.

Walker said owners hired him in April to help find a new direction for the company. H.B. Smith has about 100 stockholders, he said.

Mayor Michael R. Boulanger said H. B. Smith Co. president Edwin M. Smith informed him of the decision last week.

"We are sorry to hear this happening to a company that has 156 years in business here," Boulanger said.

H.B. Smith and the whip manufacturing business are probably the two oldest industries in Westfield, Boulanger said. For many years it was one of the city's biggest employers.

The original Smith site on Main Street closed in 1992 and was torn down in 1998 to make way for the Stop & Shop supermarket.

"We're trying to grow our manufacturing here," Boulanger said. "But it doesn't seem like the economy is cooperating.

Jim Kinney can be reached at jkinney@repub.com

retiredguy

@EBEBRATT-Ed , Thanks for the history lesson on the H B Smith company. I started working for the company I was with in Pittsburgh, Pa. in 1972. With-in a couple weeks they flew me to the Smith factory to pick up a 350-14 section boiler and deliver it to Shirleysburg, Pa. They rented me a box truck to make the delivery since there was a truckers strike and normal deliveries were not possible. The truck had a governor set to 55 MPH. What a boring trip. I was the slowest vehicle on the road. The next year they sent 4 of us to tour the Smith factory. It was an interesting trip. I was amazed that they even made their own castings. I became an expert on the building and repair of the 350/3500, 450/4500, and the 640/650/6500, boilers and later the 19 and 28 series that I did not like. The older models that I think were the 42 or 44 Smith boilers had Asbestos gaskets for the pipe nipples. I even carried the repair parts for replacing or repairing the nipple assemblies. Very interesting and heavy work but I loved it.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@retiredguy

Removing the lower drums and cleaning and installing with new nipples was not what i call fun. Did a few of them.

The difficult ones were the top nipples on the 4500 &6500. If I recall right the repair kit nipple that was split had to be welded in place