Buying boiler or engine

For the non-technical side of living with Steamboats, videos and general pictures.
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Lopez Mike
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by Lopez Mike » Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:28 pm

The think that made me sit up and bug my eyes out about the Acetylene crack was my experience with the explosive nature of Acetylene/Oxygen mixes. Not only the wonderful crack from a lean mix in a welding torch but from an ill advised experiment I once did.

I was doing some crude heat treating at the work bench. Heating up some odd bits and quenching them in some soapy water. A friend was there to watch and I turned off the oxygen and made some Acetylene bubbles and lit them. Foop!

All very well until the evil moment when I decided to light the torch again, adjust it to a nice neutral flame, snuff it out with the gasses still flowing and make a nice big bubble on the surface of the pan and light it.

My friend said it was as if god had snapped his fingers. Contents of the water pan all over the shop. Ears ringing. Much dust from the rafters drifting down. A cracked window behind me. The cat came back that evening.

DON'T DO IT!!!

I later looked up the flame propagation velocity for that gas mix and I believe it was astounding. Like thousands of feet per second.

Good judgement comes from bad experiences.
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cyberbadger
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by cyberbadger » Sat Feb 13, 2016 10:42 pm

My first boiler was from union steam aka Ross Bendixen also. I was naive and bought it for the same reasons lighthousekeeper did.

I did learn a lot on mine, but it did have issue with it. I tried on the side to give lighthousekeeper some suggestions and tricks, there are many who are burned by Ross Bendixen. He really shouldn't be selling them. I'm convinced he never really runs his stuff for very long and that's why he doesn't realize how poor they are.

I'm much happier with the new ASME custom boiler I got from LundMachineWorks(Jeff Lund).

-CB
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barts
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by barts » Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:24 am

I did the welding on Otter's boiler; this involved two 360 degree radial welds, one for the forged end on the bottom of the 7" or 8" drum and one welding a reducer bushing, which necked down to the 4" steam drum.

I ground a bevel on the end of both drums ends to match the ones already on the fittings, spaced the seams about .100 apart and did a root pass of 610, ground down to clean metal, and then two butter passes of 7018, grinding between them; this was DC, of course.

There were also 110 3/8" schedule 80 nipples to weld into drilled holes, and various thread-o-lets for boiler fittings.

This was back in 1996; the boiler was hydro'd to 400 psi and receives yearly hydros to 270 psi: 150% of safety valve setting.

The welding was easy on this boiler, it was all down-hand after the initial passes, and there was plenty of room.

- Bart
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Bart Smaalders http://smaalders.net/barts Lopez Island, WA
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by fredrosse » Thu Aug 11, 2016 1:06 pm

From Ron (Detroit Tug) "some of these builders (ASME Shops) understand methods for safe boiler construction, but ignorant about building efficient boilers in regard to proper combustion and heat transfer."
Yes, the ASME Code rules are for the safe integrity of fired boilers, however the Code does not instruct the designer/builder how to arrange the boiler for proper heat transfer and thermal performance. ASME Code certified shops generally can produce reasonably functioning boilers, by copying long standing previous designs, but many of these shops are amateurs with respect to design innovations. The Code has rules for construction of boilers, but a whole other set of heat transfer knowledge is needed to design a boiler with good performance.
If any in our steamboating fraternity is considering a new boiler design, I would offer to have a look at the details for some comments that may be relevant. Of course, it is usually better to just copy a previously proven design, there are plenty of them from years ago that will provide reasonable service. The clever thinking of engineers and designers of 100 years ago, when steam plants large and small were everywhere, is hard to beat, unless possibly you study engineering for countless hours, review all of the previous designs, their strong points as well as their shortcomings, before attempting to design something "new".
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DetroiTug
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by DetroiTug » Thu Aug 11, 2016 1:51 pm

Fred,

After operating the Firetube and the Ofeldt (watertube), it is obvious the Tug performance would benefit from a large Ofeldt. The next big personal project is to reboiler the tug. Thankfully an access opening was left in the engine room roof above the boiler for removal(Thanks to you folks on the forum). This will result in a net loss of about 600 pounds in weight and much of it up high. Going to miss the forgiveness of lapse water tending practice, but the burning a bunch of wood and not getting a lot out of it, won't be missed, neither will the extra weight when towing.

Took the Loco out Sunday and ran it for 50 miles. We tracked the distance and fuel consumption and it is getting around 18-20 miles per gallon on Kerosene. For a steam operated vehicle that is really good. Water is still a little over a mile per gallon. We achieved a top speed (per GPS) of 35 mph, it was still climbing and I let off of it. There is something about rolling along on bicycle wheels, sitting atop a wood box with zero safety equipment at 35mph that is concerning :D

Short video:



-Ron
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by fredrosse » Thu Aug 11, 2016 8:22 pm

Ron, perhaps you should consider the original Ofeldt (watertube) boiler water level automatic. Looks simple enough to make one, and then no tending the water level. A low level alarm is also a good idea, I understand that a simple automotive spark plug screwed into the water column will do well, if you are willing to use some miniwatt of electricity. Plug submerged, = conductivity = LED lights up, plug dry, no conductivity, no light. I havn't tried this myself, but it just might work fine.
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by cyberbadger » Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:35 pm

DetroiTug wrote:There is something about rolling along on bicycle wheels, sitting atop a wood box with zero safety equipment at 35mph that is concerning :D
Saw the video yesterday. Beautiful machine. Awesome work. Your loco is very close to what it would have been like in a 1902 Toledo like that Nyitra is using an engine from.

....But you have some safety equipment, your legs - JUMP! ;)

-CB
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Re: Buying boiler or engine

Post by DetroiTug » Fri Aug 12, 2016 2:09 pm

"perhaps you should consider the original Ofeldt (watertube) boiler water level automatic."

Hi Fred, My friend made one of those and it would close at temperature and then he could never get it to reopen until the system shut down. It appears that the way it is piped per the Ofeldt drawings showing their piping configuration it somehow relied on cold feedwater to cool the tube and retract, which in turn pushed cold water to the boiler (a no-no). There are a few different drawings floating around showing a design evolution possibly. The problem is or as we understand it: The tube is very short, The difference between boiler water temperature and steam temperature which is not great, results in an expansion/lengthening of the brass tube somewhere in the range of .020". So, not a lot of motion to play with. I have no doubt that it worked, no one I know has been successful in trying.

The long tube Stanley type is known to work very well with the boiler water/steam temperature differential. Easy to make too.

I added the muffler to the Loco which has another feedwater heater in it, with the economizer results in two separate feedwater heaters (Navy ships had five preheaters). It will now take on feedwater under demand and actually gain boiler pressure.

-Ron

Some pics of the muffler:
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