Stuffing box

Okay kiddo, you know how sometimes water or other liquids need to be pumped from one place to another? Well, the thing that helps keep the liquid from leaking out of the pump is called a "stuffing box."

It's kind of like a squishy rubber doughnut that sits around the part of the pump where the shaft goes through. And it has some special strings or rings of material, called "packing," that go into the doughnut and wrap around the shaft to make it watertight.

So when the pump is running and pushing liquid through, the stuffing box makes sure that none of it escapes where the shaft goes through. But if the packing wears out or becomes damaged, then the pump might start to leak and need to be fixed.

And that's the basic idea of what a stuffing box does. Pretty neat, huh?