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To cover with, or as with, felt; as, to felt the cylinder of a steam emgine.

ial, such as cotton, flax, hemp, etc., used in textile manufactures. Fiber gun, a kind of steam gun for converting, wood, straw, etc., into fiber. The material is shut up in the gun with steam, air, or gas at a very high pressure which is afterward relieved suddenly by letting a lid at the muzzle fly open, when the rap…

which causes them to appear as if burnt by fire. -- Fire box, the chamber of a furnace, steam boiler, etc., for the fire. -- Fire brick, a refractory brick, capable of sustaining intense heat without fusion, usually made of fire clay or of siliceous material, with some cementing substance, and used for lining fire b…

A man who tends the fires, as of a steam engine; a stocker.

gives a spreading flame shaped somewhat like the tail of a fish. -- Fish-tail propeller (Steamship), a propeller with a single blade that oscillates like the tail of a fish when swimming.

see Car wheel.); or for attachment to another object, as the flange on the end of a pipe, steam cylinder, etc. Knight.

A variety of water-tube boiler, used chiefly in steam automobiles, consisting of a nest of strong tubes with very little water space, kept nearly red hot so that the water as it trickles drop by drop into the tubes is immediately flashed into steam and superheated.

at board, one of the boards fixed radially to the rim of an undershot water wheel or of a steamer's paddle wheel; -- a vane. -- Float case (Naut.), a caisson used for lifting a ship. -- Float copper or gold (Mining), fine particles of metallic copper or of gold suspended in water, and thus liable to be lost. -- Floa…

a, where the power communicated, or the resistance to be overcome, is variable, as in the steam engine or the coining press. See Fly wheel (below).

ent agitation or fermentation; froth; spume; scum; as, the foam of the sea. Foam cock, in steam boilers, a cock at the water level, to blow off impurities.

A suction valve or check valve at the lower end of a pipe; esp., such a valve in a steam-engine condenser opening to the air pump.

h the adjacent pipes or ports may be made to communicate; formerly used as a valve in the steam engine, and now for various other purposes. In the illustration, a leads to the upper end of a steam engine cylinder, and b to the lower end; c is the steam pipe, and d the exhaust pipe.

a lighter battery. They carried sometimes as many as fifty guns. After the application of steam to navigation steam frigates of largely increased size and power were built, and formed the main part of the navies of the world till about 1870, when the introduction of ironclads superseded them. [Formerly spelled frigat a…

r a fluid or flowing substance; specifically, a smoke flue or pipe; the iron chimney of a steamship or the like. Funnel box (Mining), an apparatus for collecting finely crushed ore from water. Knight. -- Funnel stay (Naut.), one of the ropes or rods steadying a steamer's funnel.

of tin, which melts at a temperature below that of boiling water. Ure. -- Fusible plug (Steam Boiler), a piece of easily fusible alloy, placed in one of the sheets and intended to melt and blow off the steam in case of low water.

osed to be permanently elastic, as oxygen, hydrogen, etc., in distinction from vapors, as steam, which become liquid on a reduction of temperature. In present usage, since all of the supposed permanent gases have been liquified by cold and pressure, the term has resumed nearly its original signification, and is applied…

The plaited hemp used for packing a piston, as of the steam engine and its pumps.

ents at any moment; -- usually applied to some particular instrument; as, a rain gauge; a steam gauge.

r, a mortise gear, or its skeleton. See Mortise wheel, under Mortise. -- Expansion gear (Steam Engine), the arrangement of parts for cutting off steam at a certain part of the stroke, so as to leave it to act upon the piston expansively; the cut-off. See under Expansion. -- Feed gear. See Feed motion, under Feed, n.…

vapor or gas is formed from a liquid or solid by means of heat or chemical process, as a steam boiler, gas retort, or vessel for generating carbonic acid gas, etc.