OK, thanks for the offer. I thought you were actually down in Eugene or Corvallis.

I did already actually test the unit in the boiling water trick. It pegs fairly quickly over to the right, which I'm hoping is the correct behavior? I was carful not to let it touch the metal bottom of the pan or anything, and standard boiling temp at 1-atmosphere should be about 100-C right? It seems like it would be kind of impossible for the unit to fail in the too-high reading direction rather than the too low. I mean, if it looses pressure from too little eather in the capillary tube, wouldn't it read too low from less pressure as it expands...?

Which brings me to another question... in some past postings about thermostats, I've read that one should get a new thermostat valve rated somewhere between "170 to 180"... but if my gauge pegs at 100-C, it doesn't seem quite right that it would be calibrated in such a low range. Perhaps I'm missing something here?

Theo