Kablooey Remedy....(or, how to replace a safety fuse on a Mirro Matic)

Some time ago I made a serious error while pressure canning some potatoes, heating the canner too hot and blowing the safety fuse.  Note how you can see daylight where the plug melted and gave way.  So thankful it did!  Could have drastically changed my kitchen layout if the canner had blown up.

I took the entire canner in to my local hardware store to try and get a replacement fuse.  There are hundreds of these old Mirro Matics out there, but they had so many different catalogs and stock numbers that we couldn't figure it out.  They tried to remove the safety fuse with a crescent wrench but couldn't get it to move.  So I did some internet searches, but it seems there isn't a simple "Mirro.com" site, just multiple sites that say they carry parts.  I finally located the correct safety fuse replacement at Amazon.com, and ordered two of them.

I ran hot water over the canner lid for a few minutes, and used a socket wrench.  The old plug came out quite easily.

I cleaned the threads and installed the new fuse.  (While I was at it I made sure the steam tube was clear, too.)

The new fuse fit perfectly at exactly the same level as the old one.  Both the old and new fuses are thicker than the lid itself, by 1/4 inch or so.  This allows enough room to get a wrench on it.  The center of the new fuse appears to be a red compound of some sort, instead of the metallic gray of the old one, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

The whole operation only took a few minutes, and I'm happy to report it was a complete success.  I just finished canning up five quarts of chicken in my old canner with the new fuse and it's all good.