You guys are wonderful! Thank you for the replies!
I hate to admit it, Monarchist, but I only understand about half of what you wrote (even though I have three college degrees).
IIRC, Commanding Officer of a Corps of Engineers Gas Generating Detachment was meant to have an MS Chemical Engineering, sub specialty Chemical Process Engineering, and the enlisted operator course was 26 weeks. That included Acetylene and CO2 production, different mobile equipment, same staff.
If you had even HS Chemistry, it would take about 30 minutes to understand what was up. Liquifying air, caustic leaching of CO2, then fractionally distilling liquid to separate out the rare gases, select whether to save and pump either Nitrogen or Oxygen, not both at once. Memorizing 115 valves and their safe sequencing was what took the time.
Submarines are even more challenging, I am sure.
Nothing mysterious. Commercial industrial gas plants are in major cities all over providing Oxygen for hospitals or welding.
this may have come from one a junk yard or shipyard. He made a gorgeous mirror from a heavy-as-hell solid brass porthole. He could fix anything. I would give anything to know what in the world he planned to do with this big, heavy meter. It weighs 11.2 pounds.
Navy is possible. Submarines use very high pressure air or they just could not work, and the USN carriers have need of breathing Oxygen for pilots.
So if I understand correctly, it was maybe a nitrogen gauge or hydraulic gauge?
I'm coming down on the side of high-pressure gas, not hydraulics. Could be ordinary air as-had, or one of its components.
How would I go about finding the FSN/NSN (Federal Stock Number/National Stock Number)? Just more Google research? What would that provide... more info to help value it, I'm guessing?
Standard Noun Nomenclature, as in GAGE, pressure .. more modifiers in descending order, Type 1, Class 2, and such. There are specific search tools online. Here's the general gist of how it works:
Federal Stock Number - Wikipedia
NATO Stock Number - Wikipedia
Joe, I'm excited but a little nervous about rubbing through the paint...
Don't do that. It will be brass. They still make Brass. That part is not rare.
They still make the gages, too. That size may be a special order item, but the drawings are still on-file:
General Equipment Gauges
Photos and such sent off with a note to Ametek US Gage, and they can tell you more about it, quote repairs, or sell you a
brand new one.
"Collectors" get all excited when they see 'old and grubby' and forget '
still being made, brand-new, and in common everyday use - somewhere' may equally apply!
Let a collector who has found a righteous need else
paid you for it decide about that rubbing through the finish part.
Who knows? It might be someone restoring a vintage submarine? We have a few on display. I crawled through a WWII fleet boat at Pearl Harbour on one tour years ago meself. Too busy trying not to knock myself unconscious to take note of all the dials and gauges. There are quite a lot of them!
There are far more interesting things to put up for display around your own residence.
Or so I hope and trust!