stuffing box

See also: stuffing-box

English[edit]

stuffing box (plural stuffing boxes)

(engineering) An assembly containing a seal, or sealing material, around a shaft.
- 1943 September and October, “The Why and the Wherefore: Locomotive Cylinder Drain Cocks”, in Railway Magazine, page 319:
  Packing in the stuffing-boxes, through which the piston-rods pass at the end of the cylinder, and so arranged to keep the cylinders steam-tight, at times become loose or displaced, and in such conditions steam may pass with considerable violence out of the cylinder by way of the stuffing-box, giving an acoustic effect somewhat resembling that of an engine with cylinder-cocks open, except that the noise heard is intermittent and not practically continuous, as when the cylinder cocks are open.
- 1951 June, “British Railways Standard Class "5" 4-6-0 Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 399:
  The regulator in the dome is of the vertical grid type, operated by an external pull rod connected to a transverse shaft which works through a stuffing box on the second barrel plate.