Sold February 2005 Back to Archive

Coal-fired vertical boiler, expanded steel tubes, inspection cover with bridge, blowdown valve. Once widely available for driving small workshop steam engines, demand dropped off until even Stuart stopped listing them in the 1950s.

This boiler is very similar to the units offered by Stuart, Bassett-Lowke and others fifty years ago. It would make a fine display boiler which would be capable of driving several models simultaneously or a larger real engine. What makes this one particularly appealing is that, underneath the dust and muck accumulated over the last forty years in a barn, it's brand new and unsteamed. The grate is missing, the threaded fitting holes in the boiler sheel still have the manufacturers wooden blanking plugs in.

The last picture is taken from a 1940 Stuart catalogue. I don't think this boiler is a Stuart, but very similar.

Height 28 inches
Diameter 11 inches
Tubes 12 x 1 inch diameter